National singles champions Kane Watson and Yvonne Foster will lead an eight-member Jamaican team to the Caribbean Table Tennis Championships in St Lucia between August 27 and September 1, 2013. The team was selected following the completion of the National Table Tennis Championships held at the National Arena last weekend.

The team will comprise Joseph Dibbs, Simon Tomlinson and Phillip Drummond on the men's side, while Kaydian Carney, Dadrian Lewis and Shenique Clare complete the team. According to JTTA President, Godfrey Lothian, the team will spend the next month preparing for the Caribbean tournament by way of daily practice sessions inside the National Arena.

"Discussions are ongoing with potential sponsors to fund the trip to St Lucia, and an announcement will be made in the coming days," Lothian disclosed.

Meanwhile, Dibbs, the losing men's singles finalist and immediate past-president of the association, believes Watson's game has shown a lot of improvement and that should allow him to play even better at the championships where the national champion bowed out at the quarter-final stage last time out.

"As president, I invested a lot in sending Kane to Sweden and places like that, and it showed in the class of his play," he said following Sunday's final.

"I haven't played for three years, I wasn't up to that level of match play but I must say; and I have played a number of international matches - his level of play was really high and this is good news for Jamaica going into the Caribbean championships next month. Our team is going to be strong with Watson playing like this. He is going to win a lot of matches, like he won last year. He actually just lost two matches at the championships and it was to the same player."

As for his own game, Dibbs believes with some additional practice, he should be back to his best soon.

- L.L.