Franklin Mathilda honored with a tremendous tournament
Franklin Mathilda is celebrating the fact that 45 years ago he entered the international world of table tennis. It was a training camp in Holland that he and Robert Hose went to. Since then Franklin was for 45 years long internationally involved as players, trainer, coach, especially as table tennis leader of Curacao and during the last couple of years acting as consultant of our federation. Franklin Mathilda is well known among table tennis leaders over the whole American continent and even by some ITTF directors. In this respect Franklin was honored with a tournament, whereby we had some players from abroad what did make this event some special. The event was during the weekend of August 1st and 2nd. On the Saturday the categories of men and women singles were scheduled, while the Sunday was for the juniors. The men singles had 24 players with participation besides Curacao of Bonaire, Holland and Sweden. From Bonaire we had the number2 ranked player Almar Nicolaas, from Holland Ron van Spanje former national champion of his country and Daniel Majetic a Swedish young player who was visiting Curacao these days. Playing in 8 groups the 2 best players of each group classified for the round of 16. Using the knock out elimination the event was played further until we remained with the last four in the semi final. These players were Daniel Majestic, Ron van Spanje, Michael Dalnoot and Jaysron Mathilda. Daniel won easily of Michael, while Ron did the same way with Jaysron Mathilda. It was quite obvious that these players who have made the more impression during these games would reach the final: Daniel l Majetic vs Ron van Spanje. It was a final with a lot of expectations among the large crowd of spectators, who find their way to Sala Irene Moreno. However the young Swedish player did not have any compassion with the former Dutch champion and won easily 3-0. In between the men games the women games were also played. 8 players did play in 2 groups of 4 headed each by the most advanced players among these 8 players: Dayanara Jean Pierre and Mary-Ann Mac Leod. With no problem both players reached the final. In this final Dayanara Jean Pierre showed no mercy against Mary-Ann and won the match easily 3-0. The next day the juniors showed up and playing in 2 categories: U14 and U18. The U14 was won easily by the Almahir Nicolaas from Bonaire, while in U18 Riordan did not have it easy at all against Joèl Pauletta. Joèl is making great progress and made it very difficult for Riordan. Finally Riordan won the game in 5 sets.
