Trinidad and Tobago’s Aaron Raghoonanan etched his name into the history books yet again by winning the Dutch Caribbean Championship, which was held at Jong Bonaire community centre in Bonaire from April 3-6. Just as he did last year, Raghoonanan came through the tournament undefeated, winning all seven of his matches.
On his way to the final, the repeat champion beat Bonaire’s David Everts 7-3 and Curacao’s Shandro Paula also 7-3. Those two wins put him directly into the knockout round of 32, where the race increased by one from a race to seven to the first to eight.
In his third match, he needed 14 frames to defeat Charles Vos 8-6 and then went hill/hill against Andrew Mercera, before prevailing 8-7, both players from the host country. His quarterfinal match was a repeat of last year’s final against Jorge Petrocchi. Raghoonanan made light work of the encounter defeating Petrocchi eight-nil.
His next opponent, Curacao’s Shamir Tremus Seintje was one of the region’s title hopefuls but met an in-form Raghoonanan who was intent on going all the way. Seintje took a one-nil lead but fell behind 1-4 before clawing his way back to make the score 5-6. The Curacao top player stayed close at 6-7 but the T&T cueist was just too strong and eventually won the encounter eight frames to six. The last two matches of this year’s tournament followed a similar script to that of 2024 where the semifinal was more competitive than the title match. Barat Ibrahim, who placed 34th last year, was also undefeated going into the final.
He was, however, no match for Raghoonanan, who won the encounter nine frames to four. The now two-time champion became the second player to repeat as champion after Aruba’s Jorzinho Everon completed the feat on home soil in the inaugural tournament in 2022 and again in 2023.
The victory was somewhat bittersweet for Raghoonanan. Earlier on Sunday, his former teammate and longtime friend Dilip Deo aka Pepper was laid to rest. Deo, a former national champion, suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away on April 2 , one day after the T&T squad left for the tournament.
Raghoonanan dedicated his win to his fallen friend.
Raghoonanan led an eight-player contingent from Trinidad and Tobago, which featured Sham Jagerssar, Ravi Goorah, Allan James, Shivanand Bhagwat, Jason Khan, Jesse Gangaram and Marouf Mohammed. Jagerssar, Goorah and Bhagwat joined Raghoonanan in the last 32 and despite some close matches, could not advance further.
In all, there were 72 players from nine countries. Host country Bonaire had the most with 26, Aruba 10, Curacao, T&T and Guyana had eight players each, St Maarten 5, Barbados 4, St Eustatius and Suriname 2 and 1 respectively.
This was the first tournament in over ten years in Bonaire.
Marvin Abdul, president of the Bonaire Billiards Federation (FEBIBO), said he was extremely happy and proud of how smoothly things went over the four-day period. He added that a lot of hard work went into making the tournament happen and wanted to thank all the players and volunteers for making it the huge success it was.
The contingent from T&T was expected back into the country on Tuesday night.
