This coun­try's se­nior men and women teams had to set­tle for third spot in their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions of the Lieb­herr World Team Ta­ble Ten­nis Cham­pi­onship in Dort­mund, Ger­many, yes­ter­day. In the men's Fifth Di­vi­sion third place play­off for 99th spot, T&T need­ed a four-set vic­to­ry from Ter­rell Ab­bott, over Ja­maican Si­mon Tom­lin­son, 11-9, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9 to seal a tense 3-2 tri­umph. Play­ing with­out star play­er, France-based Dex­ter St Louis, T&T took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five se­ries via Cur­tis Humpreys' 11-7, 11-5, 5-11, 12-10 win over Tom­lin­son but Ab­bott was then up­staged by Kane Wat­son 9-11, 5-11, 11-9, 11-13 to leave both teams lev­el at 1-1. Reeza Burke, pres­i­dent of the T&T Ta­ble Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion who trav­elled with the team as man­ag­er/coach made an ap­pear­ance for T&T in the ab­sence of St Louis and got a de­fault win over Samuel La­m­ont, how­ev­er Humphreys could not close out the tie as went un­der to Wat­son 3-11, 7-11, 5-11 to set up the de­cid­ing clash where Ab­bott came through for T&T, the reign­ing Caribbean team cham­pi­ons.

The win over Ja­maica was the sec­ond against a re­gion­al ri­val for T&T af­ter it thrashed Bar­ba­dos 3-0 in Thurs­day's quar­ter­fi­nal. On Fri­day, T&T had suf­fered a 3-2 loss to Sri Lan­ka in the semi­fi­nals for 97t spot de­spite two wins from St Louis, over Nir­mala Jayas­ing­ha 11-6, 11-4, 11-5 and Ro­han Sirise­na 8-11, 11-4, 9-11, 11-8, 11-6. For the Sri Lankans, Sirise­na de­feat­ed Humphreys 12-10, 11-7, 13-11, Sil­va De­shap­priya stopped Ab­bott 11-4, 11-4, 11-5 and Jayas­ing­ha over­came Humphreys in the fifth and de­cid­ing en­counter 11-8, 11-9, 6-11, 11-5. In the fi­nal which was con­test­ed yes­ter­day, Mon­go­lia, the oth­er team to beat T&T at the tour­na­ment edged Sri Lan­ka, 3-2. The lo­cal women's team of France-based Rheann Chung, nine-time na­tion­al cham­pi­on Aleena Ed­wards and 17-year-old Cather­ine Spicer se­cured third spot in the Fourth Di­vi­sion, 75th play­off af­ter whip­ping Lebanon 3-1.

Chung, the step-daugh­ter of St Louis led T&T with two straight sets vic­to­ries over Tvin Ca­r­ole Moumjogh­lian 11-8, 12-10, 11-9 and Lara Ke­je­bachi­an 11-7, 12-10, 11-2. Spicer got the oth­er win for the reign­ing Caribbean queens' 11-9, 11-7, 11-6 over Ri­ta Bsaibes while Ed­wards went un­der to Ke­je­bachi­an 5-11, 8-11, 11-5, 4-11. In Fri­day's 73rd to 76th semi­fi­nal, T&T was stopped by Nor­way 3-2 with Chung once again get­ting two wins. Chung was dom­i­nant ver­sus Marte Aase­bo 11-6, 11-9, 11-6 and Marthe Nilsen 11-7, 11-2, 11-5. The loss to the Nor­we­gians came af­ter T&T won its 73rd to 76th po­si­tion quar­ter­fi­nal, 3-0 over Tajik­istan ear­li­er in the day. Chung brushed aside Az­iza Karie­va 11-6, 11-1, 11-2; Ed­wards out­gunned Amiri Sumayai 11-4, 11-8, 6-11, 7-11, 11-4 and Spicer bat­tled past Az­iza Radzhabo­va 11-4, 11-8, 6-11, 12-10. (NS)