Chiriquí Chatter

A week ago, I posted an email on a table tennis club in David. Today, I was able to go take some photos. Here is the Chiriquí Tenis de Mesa.

Let me tell you that if you enjoy fooling around playing ping pong, then this is not the place for you. This is a serious Table Tennis club. If you understand and enjoy Table Tennis played as a sport, then this is the place to come.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the playing facility is located on the second floor across the street from where Banco BBVA used to be. See the previous post for a photo of the outside of the building.

The hours are 2:00 PM to 8:30 PM Monday through Saturday. You enter through the Salon as mentioned in the previous post and walk up the stairs. You will see the sign above and you will know you are in the right place.

When I entered, I was very impressed. I was greeted by Raul Miranda who explained their operations.

The prices are $1 per hour and currently there is a promotion special of $2 for the day.

The club membership rates follow:

For more information call 6728-0717 or 6816-4249.

Raul and Lester Sanjay are the trainers. Raul is Panamanian and Lester is from Guatemala, if I remember correctly. I think they both may be internationally ranked.

All of the equipment in the club is first class. The tables were Stiga and a brand I didn’t know. Stiga is one of the premium brands in table tennis. I noticed some racket cases for sale and I don’t remember if they sell rackets or not. However, I have seen both Stiga and Butterfly in DoIt Center and Arrocha. There may be other locations to buy them in David that I don’t know about.

I took a few photos of the playing area. I watched the two players in the right of this photo. They were both good and that convinced me that this will be a good place for the best players in Chiriquí to meet.

Notice the netting that is between me and the playing area. There were four tables for full play and there was adequate space for playing.

The following photo is the training area. It is equipped with an automatic serving machine and this is the area that is used by Raul and Lester to give instructions.

I asked Lester and Raul to pose for a photo and they agreed. Lester is on the left and Raul is on the right.

I took a short video of a couple players practicing for doubles and returning balls from the machine. That should give you an idea of how the training area works.

As I said, I was very impressed to find such a quality practice area for table tennis in David. Raul told me that there will be an International Open tournament February 27 – 28 in Chitre. That might be worth going to see. I understand that there will be several world ranked players playing.

If you drop by Tenis de Mesa de Chiriquí, tell Raul that you learned about them on Chiriquí Chatter.

Tags: Sports