By Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK
Theo Beukes of the Eliminators Table Tennis Club confirmed his domination in domestic table tennis, when he added the Windhoek Table Tennis Championships trophy to his haul of achievements the past season, recently.
Beukes is the current top ranked player in Namibia after he also won the Namibia Open Championships earlier this year.
On his way to the final match, Beukes first had to stave off some resistance from Quinton Losper of the Windhoek College of Education before meeting Christa Mrozek of SKW in the semi-finals. Mrozek is the top women’s player in the league, but plays in the Men’s Division because of the current shortage of female opponents.
She has a solid defence that is difficult to break through, but Beukes showed a keen sense of judgement and attacked at the right moments to bypass Mrozek’s defence. Although Mrozek tried her utmost, Beukes won the encounter in straight sets, 3-luv.
In the men’s final, Beukes was pitted against Reinholt Schurtz of SKW, a defensive player with an unpredictable attack. In this match Beukes again approached his opponent with the suspicion of a snooker player, seeking out the split moments when Schurtz dropped his guard.
Although Beukes did not have it all his own way, he was able to wrestle the trophy away from the defending champion with a 3-1 scoreline.
The men’s doubles produced the biggest upset of the tournament when defending champions, Theo Beukes and Melanky Farmer had to relinquish their title to Wulf Pinschenschaum and Christa Mrozek of SKW.
The defeat brought to an end a 4-year domination in the men’s doubles by Beukes and Farmer.
In the final match, a determined Mrozek and Pinschenschaum hardly deviated from their defensive style, venturing only a few shots at attack.
Beukes and Farmer tried every shot in the book, but just could not penetrate the defensive wall put up by their opponents, with the result that the match was won by Mrozek and Pinschenschaum within the first two balls after deuce.