Sri Lanka’s double international in cricket and table tennis Dr Buddy Reid won a world title in table tennis when he emerged champion in the over 75 years category at the World Table Tennis Championship held in Alicante, Spain from May 23-29.
Dr Reid had to win nine matches in a row to win the championships and amongst his victims were the reigning European champion Horst Ifland of Switzerland, the reigning world champion Chong Tay (Chinese American), two former world champions Lay of Hong Kong and Dimitri Bilic of Germany and competitors from Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Slovakia and Sweden.
In the semi-final Dr Reid beat Tay (USA) in five sets and in the final he beat Bilic (Germany) in three straight sets.
Dr Reid also won the Silver medal in the doubles event with Australian partner Igor Klaf losing in five sets (the last set 15/13).
A total of 4,600 competitors participated in all age groups of which 252 entered for the Men’s singles over 75 years.
Dr Reid is currently over 75 State champion singles and doubles, Australian champion singles and doubles and World champion singles missing out on the doubles by two points.
He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Victorian State Table Tennis in February 2016.
Dr Reid began his veterans table tennis career in Australia in 2001 and became Australian champions over 65 (2007) and over 75 (2015). He was four times Australian doubles champ. He is the only man to win the New Zealand open Veterans triple crown three years in a row.
Prior to migrating to Australia, Dr Reid was three times national table tennis champion of Sri Lanka (1959-1962) and six times doubles champion.
He captained Sri Lanka in two sports (cricket and table tennis) and two countries (Sri Lanka and Australia) in one sport – table tennis.
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