Kane, Tomlinson positive despite Olympic bid failure

The bid by Simon Tomlinson and Kane Watson to qualify for the Olympics is over. However, they have both emerged from the Latin American table tennis qualifying tournament in Rosario, Argentina, with a positive outlook and Watson believes a string of high-level tournaments would help as he looks to the Commonwealth Games which are set for next year.

Tomlinson, the reigning Jamaica champion, kept his nerve in a seven-set thriller against Venezuela's Cecilio Correa, winning 11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 12-14, 8-11, 11-9 and 14-12 even though he is world ranked at 702 and the Venezuelan at 331. Then he was eliminated from the first stage of the event 1 set to 4, by world number 77, Alberto Mino of Ecuador. In stage 2, he found himself down 4-11, 8-11, 4-11 against world number 133 Daniel Gonzalez of Puerto Rico.

He dug deeper and took the fourth set 11-9. "I started to tell myself that I had to give more, that I could play a better game and points started to connect a bit better", he said from Rosario on April 16. Gonzalez won the fifth set 11-9 to advance.

Watson, world ranked at 756, got going late against Cuba's Jorge Campos, world 275, and lost in the first stage 3-11, 2-11, 11, 7-11, 6-11 and in the second stage, he lost 1-4 to Hector Gatica of Guatemala, ranked at 375. On reflection, Watson said of his encounter with the Cuban 2016 Olympian "I started most of the sets late and tried to play catch up. I tried to rush the game instead of making my opponent do more than me making unforced errors.''

Second guess

He took a set off Gatica but rued lost chances. "I made some decisions which I wouldn't second guess but I'd probably do differently to get better execution to close out the sets,'' he explained of a match that finished 9-11, 7-11, 11-8, 11-9, 11-3.

Tomlinson has no regrets. ''Given everything that we had to go through from the last year, not just the last year, but the last four years, not disappointed," he said. ''I did the best that I could and then I gave more, beyond that point. So, I'm not disappointed in the result at all. It's comforting. Both players I lost to are top 100 players and I was in both games with them so I'm not disappointed in how I was playing.''

Asked how the Rosario experience might help his preparations for the Commonwealth Games, Watson added "To prepare for that, I would like to have more high-level tournaments leading up to that, the difference to playing this one and waiting one whole year to play a next one would defeat the purpose of the learning experience here. To play high-level tournaments back to back to back would definitely increase my level so, hopefully, I'll get in a string of tournaments before Commonwealth Games and use this as a stepping stone going forward."