Sheridan Greaves happy despite first round defeat

Barbados’ Sheridan Greaves is happy with his opening Kumite match in his first Pan American Senior Karate Champion-ships, which was held in Uruguay.

Taking to Ring 1 yesterday, Greaves lost 5-0 in Pool 1 Round 1 of the male 84+ kg category to Costa Rica’s Gerardo Vargas.

However, the black belt in Shotokan karate is not daunted by the lost in his first World Karate Federation-style tournament and said that he felt it was good though it wasn’t the result that he would have hoped for.

“I felt my movement throughout the match was good and pressuring my opponent. I just need to work on my strategy a bit more. I felt it was difficult to create openings, even though I was clearly faster than my opponent, so that is something I will work on in the future.”

Greaves looked to have had the advantage over his opponent as he had taken control of the centre and was pressing his opponent to the outskirts, but was caught most of the time with a counter.

The 24-year-old Greaves described his lead up to the match and said that “I felt good, my mind was clear. I didn’t have any worries or concerns, I knew what I did in training and the game plan was just to replicate that. Leading up to the fight I felt good, mentally I was there but on entering the ring, I noticed that in the actual arena where all the rings are is actually much colder than the warm-up area.”

Greaves added that he did not anticipate the drastic change in temperature and felt it affected some of his movements in the early part of the fight as he felt a “bit sluggish”.

Looking back, he gave his overall fight a seven out of 10 points.

“For my first time fighting at this level of competition, fighting people who have been doing this since they were juniors and are seasoned competitors, former Pan Am runners-up and people who compete in Premier League, I felt like I fought well.

“I deduct those three points because of not developing better strategies going into the fight and moving a bit sluggish throughout the fight.

“The aim is to come back better.”

Kodie King is slated to take to the centre stage today in the male – 74 kg Kumite Division. (CG)