BAHRAIN made a winning start to the men’s teams’ table tennis tournament last night at the fourth GCC Games in Doha, Qatar.
The Bahrainis – whose squad yesterday featured Rashed Sanad, Sayed Murtadha Mahfoodh, and Mohammed Abbas Abdulwahab – beat their counterparts from Qatar 3-1 in their opening contest of this category.
They will next play Saudi Arabia and Oman in two more matches as they aim to climb the podium in the teams’ competition.
Also today in table tennis, Bahrain will begin their medal bid in the mixed doubles quarter-finals, with Sanad paired with Ryan Emad and Abdulwahab playing alongside Dana Alkhayyat.
Bahrain have two other men’s paddlers on their roster at the GCC Games, including Elyas Alyasi and Mohammed Nader.
Elsewhere yesterday at the Qatari capital, Bahraini brothers Hussain Maroom and Haider Maroom bowed out of medal contention in the men’s 10-ball singles tournament.
Hussain began his campaign on a positive note, defeating Meshari Bouhaimed of Kuwait 7-5, but he then lost 5-7 to Mohammed Baabad of Saudi. Hussain bounced back with a 6-3 triumph against Abdulaziz Alamoudi of Saudi, but then suffered another loss against Bashar Husain of Qatar 4-6.
Haider suffered a 2-7 defeat to Mahmoud Charif of the UAE in his first contest and then bowed 2-6 to Sulaiman Gholoum of Kuwait.
Both Hussain and Haider will now shift their focus to the men’s 10-ball doubles event today, as well as to the men’s nine-ball singles. They are the kingdom’s only two participants in the billiards competitions in Doha.
Bahrain’s delegation at this year’s GCC Games features a total of 219 members, headlined by 146 athletes – 100 men and 46 women.
They are going for gold in 16 of the event’s 18 sports. Aside from table tennis and billiards, the others include archery, athletics, 3x3 basketball, boxing, handball, equestrian, fencing, karate, padel, shooting, snooker, swimming, taekwondo, and volleyball.
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