Bob Roop­nar­ine, T&T’s mas­ter ta­ble ten­nis king, claimed two bronze medals at the just-con­clud­ed Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Mas­ters Ta­ble Ten­nis Cham­pi­onships in Tegu­ci­gal­pa, Hon­duras.

​On the fi­nal day of com­pe­ti­tion yes­ter­day, Roop­nar­ine, now a long-serv­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor of the sport lo­cal­ly, went un­der to Mario Es­pinoza of Nicaragua in the semi­fi­nals of the Mas­ters 60-64 sin­gles three sets to two (3-2) to se­cure his first bronze medal.

​Ear­li­er, Roop­nar­ine en­joyed a strong start to his sin­gles cam­paign, fin­ish­ing among the top two play­ers to emerge from Group 3 of the play­offs. With 3-0 vic­to­ries over Luis Adri­an Vazquez of Mex­i­co (11-4, 11-6, 11-7) and Jorge Rivera of Guatemala (11-4, 11-4, 11-2), Roop­nar­ine ac­cu­mu­lat­ed five points to progress to the play­offs, with group win­ner Os­car Moli­na of Nicaragua with six points.

Con­fi­dent af­ter his per­for­mances in the group stage, the lo­cal ta­ble ten­nis icon made sure of a semi­fi­nal berth when he swept past the Mex­i­can in the first set 11-7, and lat­er com­plet­ed iden­ti­cal scores 11-6 in the oth­er two sets to as­sure him­self of a place in the semi­fi­nals.

​How­ev­er, for­tune did not fa­vor him in the round of four. Up against Es­pinoza, Roop­nar­ine got off to a fly­er, tak­ing a 2-0 lead (11-8, 11-6). He could not hold on, as the Nicaraguan stormed back to win the next three sets (11-6, 11-9, 11-5) to clinch a 3-2 vic­to­ry.

​His sec­ond bronze medal came in the team event. As the lone T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the tour­na­ment, Roop­nar­ine joined forces with Hon­duras’ Al­ber­to Bar­rera and Car­los Caf­faro of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in a round-robin for­mat against Mex­i­co 1, Mex­i­co 2, Hon­duras, and Nicaragua.

The com­bined trio dropped their open­ing match 2-3 to Nicaragua be­fore re­bound­ing with a 3-0 tri­umph over Mex­i­co 1. The host na­tion then halt­ed their mo­men­tum with a 3-0 de­feat. Bar­rera sat out the fi­nal con­test against Mex­i­co 2, but Roop­nar­ine and Caf­faro pre­vailed 3-0 for a to­tal of six points to se­cure third place over­all and the bronze medal.

​Re­flect­ing on his per­for­mance af­ter the tour­na­ment, Roop­nar­ine said: "It's a crazy feel­ing. I nev­er ex­pect­ed any­thing like this. I have not been play­ing reg­u­lar­ly, and I have some prob­lems with my joints, an­kles and knees, so I nev­er ex­pect­ed to reach this far.”

"So it is a pleas­ant sur­prise to me, and I am hap­py that it has hap­pened. It will open the way and pave the way for more per­sons from the Caribbean and Trinidad and To­ba­go to par­tic­i­pate in these events in the fu­ture."