Buffalo s table ’ tennis duo head to nationals
Buffalo City Table Tennis Union (BCTTU) president Nigel Adams has welcomed the return to competition when the best players come together for the first tournament of the season later this month.
BCTTU players Kurt Adams and Apiwe Makuluma will represent the union at the event to be hosted in Bloemfontein from December 17-20, Nigel Adams told DispatchLIVE on Monday.
The event is aimed at giving players the chance to get competitive action under their belts.
Kurt Adams, from Alphen Table Tennis Club, and Makuluma, from Quigney TTC, want to bring home the honours from what will be a tough test.
“The various affiliates hosted trial events where players competed, with the top two players in each region moving on to the national event,” Nigel Adams said.
Manager and coach Sipho Vika will travel with the players and top East London umpire Tiffany Adams, also a BCTTU member, has been selected by the SATTB as a technical official.
The latter also represented SA in 2018 in Australia at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Tiffany is no stranger to umpiring in international events, having officiated at a world championship tournament in Germany in 2017 as well as travelling extensively through Europe in 2016 and 2017 as a provincial sports ambassador to Germany.
“We are very proud to have them represent us at this event,” Nigel Adams said.
“Both Kurt and Apiwe were top players at junior level and Kurt is also a former SA representative, so they definitely have the talent to make us proud.”
He added that both played table tennis from a very young age together at school level at St John's Road Primary School and later at Hudson Park High School.
Kurt represented SA as an U18 player in 2009 and 2010 in the Africa Zonal champs and also the African U18 championships in Congo Brazzaville.
Nigel said the game had taken a knock at grass roots level in 2020.
“Covid-19 has certainly hit us hard so when this tournament was announced, it was something nice for the players, because they were able to compete again and stand a chance to be one of our top two,” the president said.
“Usually by this time in the year, we would have selected an Eastern Cape schools team which would have competed at a national tournament in the first week of December.
“Our focus is junior sections as that is our feeder system to the seniors,”