Dr Buddy Reid Over-75 World TT Champ
Even at the ripe old age of the late 70s, former Sri Lanka double international Dr Buddy Reid cannot be denied the limelight. Now domiciled in Australia, this son of Lanka continues to evoke national pride among Sri Lankans. On this occasion Dr Reid was crowned World Champion at the Over-75 World Table Tennis (TT) Championship in Spain. In the preliminary rounds the Dr Reid showed his prowess in the game in which he represented the National TT team with success at national and international level, by first defeating reigning European champion Horst Ifland of Switzerland, then former world champion Bilil of Germany and finally, his biggest victory was when he overcame a fighting, reigning world champion Lay from China. These three victories signaled that Dr Reid is in for the long haul, looking fit as ever. Along the way he didn’t have any problems defeating Lau (Hong Kong) and other players from Slovakia, New Zealand, Japan and Sweden.
Against reigning world champ Lay (China) in the semi-finals, Dr. Reid’s skill, fitness and experience was stretched to its limits to overcome the Chinese champ, as the game went to the deciding 5th set. In the finals, Dr Reid trounced former champ Dimitri Bilil (Germany) 3-0. Partnering Igor Klaf of Russia in the Doubles final, this match too went down to the wire, but Dr. Reid and his partner had to be content with the Runner-up spot, losing the all important 5th set 13-15. At St. Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia, Buddy Reid was a member of every age group team from Under12 to 1st XI. As an opening batsman he was a tower of strength, difficult to dislodge, holding his end, making way for other batsmen to settle down to post huge scores for the school. Buddy played in only one Royal-Thomian match in 1959 under Dennis Ferdinands, as he entered the Faculty of Medicine.
Playing for Colombo University in the company of Cricketers such as Sarath Wimalaratne, M.L. Idroos, Gurusinghe, Balakrishna to name a few, in the then premier Cricket tournament of Ceylon the P. Saravanamuttu Trophy, he became an automatic choice for the National side to play against the visiting Pakistan team under Imtiaz Ahamed in 1964. Ceylon, captained by Michael Tissera, playing in the first ever 4-day unofficial ‘Test’ defeated Pakistan in three days. Dr. Reid had the unique achivement of captaining the National Cricket team against the MCC in 1968-69 and the National Table Tennis team at the Asian Games in Bangkok, at the Asian TT Championship in Singapore and the Peking International Games in China. As a TT player, Dr Reid represented Ceylon with distinction in international tournaments. All Sri Lankans should take pride in Dr Reid’s performance, at this age.