Butale Wins Women’s National Table Tennis Crown

Smash Maniacs’ Boitshwarelo Butale is the new national champion after beating Tshepiso Rebatenne 3-1 in a Botswana Table Tennis Association (BTTA) ‘Road to Finale’ women’s final on Saturday.

It was a classical tie that paired the old rivals in a fight for the top rank spot in the country.

The win makes Butale the new queen of the table, as Rebatenne is now demoted to second fiddle in the country.

Butale showed her intentions in the first set winning by a close margin. But she was downed in the second set as Rebatenne levelled matters.

The ping-pong women’s veteran took the lead, making it 2-1 ahead of the fourth and last set. It was a closely battled tie on the fourth set, but reigning number one was forced in to errors as Butale cruised easily with a 11-4 score to become the country’s new top ranked player. In the men’s section, reigning number one, Tshenolo Mooketsi met his number two, Boago Malobela. It was another final between the young talents who have dominated the scenes on the table this season. Mooketsi edged his rival 3-0 to maintain his dominance on the table. “It is always a difficult game to play. He (Malobela) is very unpredictable. He changes his style of play every time we play, you can never predict on how he is going to play his game. It is also a game of pressure as we are both currently leading the table tennis charts in the country,” Mooketsi told Monitor Sport.

Despite winning the one-day tournament, Mooketsi was unhappy with his performance as he attributed it lack of proper training.

“I am not proud of my performance today. I have not been training well; I have been focused on my academic work hence I did not train well. But all in all, I am happy to have won the tournament,” he said.

The champions in both sections walked away with P2, 000, runners-up with P1, 000 while the semifinalist and quarterfinalist pocketed P600 and P200 respectively.

The tournament was sponsored by STAG and Phoenix Assurance Group.

This was the second tournament hosted BTTA since the government gave sport the green light to return to competitive action.

Table tennis remains the only sport to have hosted competitive games since the government eased movement restrictions.