A team from the Tupou Tertiary Institute [TTI] won the first National Pacific Insurance Table Tennis Business House Fiefia Trophy on Friday, November 13.

TTI won six games to five against rivals from Matatoa 3 of the Tonga Power Ltd, bringing the two and a half-month competition for businesses to an end.

The first prize included the NPI winner’s trophy, a carton of Shiraz wine and $200 meal voucher from Chef Zero Restaurant at Popua. 

The competition was a team competition, with 11 games consisting of three women’s singles, three men’s singles, two women’s doubles, two men’s doubles and one mixed doubles were played each week between teams.

TTI won one women’s singles, two women’s women’s doubles, one men’s doubles, mixed doubles and one men’s singles to win 6 games out of 11 to win the finals.

Inclusive

Hasiloni Fungavai, TTTF President, said one of the highlights of the Business House tournament was the high competition provided by the NATA team members (players with disabilities).

“A lot of negative perception about what a person with a disability can do was influenced positively by the NATA team, many of the players from the other teams, especially when they played against NATA realised how strong and competitive the NATA players were and came to realise that disability is not a restricting factor in table tennis,” he said.

Teams

Competing teams included, BSP Bank, Tupou Tertiary Institute, Ministry of Finance, NATA; Persons with Disabilities Advocacy Group and three teams from Tonga Power and Utilities; Matatoa 1, Matatoa 2 and Matatoa 3.  

All teams were put into a round robin competition, which ran for seven-weeks before a knockdown draw, which separated Tier 1 and Tier 2.  TTI won the Tier 1 competition, Matatoa was second and 3^rd place was awarded to the Ministry of Finance and NATA. Matatoa 1 won the Tier 2 competition ahead of their colleagues Matatoa 2 in second place and BSP.

The next competition is expected to start in late July 2021 with great support from companies and ministries forming teams.

This was the first year table tennis was included in the Fiefia Sports since the establishment of the Fiefia Sports competition about 12-years ago for Government 

The table tennis Fiefia competition took place at TTI and Tonga Power Limited garage at Matatoa.

TTI team winners were ‘Ofa Pakalani as captain, Tevita Vaikona, Mosese Vakalahi, Brandon Luani, Lu’isa Veamatahau, Kaleni Vaka’uta, ‘Alaha Funaki and Mapa Kaufusi.

National Pacific Insurance provided trophies for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place in Tier 1 and another trophy for the winner of the Tier 2 competition. 

The Chinese Embassy provided Shiraz wines for all the participating teams.