Pretoria’s Patrick Trezise reached the last 16 in his weight division at the World Judo Championships that ended in Rotterdam, Netherlands at the weekend.

Trezise, South Africa’s only contestant at the senior championships, competed against close to 50 Judoka from around the world in the -90kg division.

The Durban-born fighter had a bye in his first bout which pushed him though to the next round where he fought a tough fight against Hungarian Tamas Madarasz.

Trezise, 28, won this fight taking him through to round three (or the Last 16) where he lost narrowly to Milan Randle of Slovakia.

‘In the second round I beat the Hungarian guy by ippon after a long tough fight, we were even on waza-ari each for most of the fight. then I lost to the Slovakian guy by three shidos (penalties) to one.

‘Korea fared best of all the countries this year, there must have been close on 100 countries in action.

‘I’m sure with just a bit better preparation I could have ben in the top five because it’s so close that any of the top 10  guys could have taken medals on the day. I’ve had just one strong tournament (Africa camps) and not even one international training camp this year compared to the other countries who have had at least five strong tournaments beforehand and are constantly busy from one international training camp to the next.’

Said Judo South Africa’s Alan van Deventer: ‘This has been a good effort by Patrick and gives us an idea of the level of our players compared to the rest of the Judo World.

‘We still have a lot of work to do but we are heading in the right direction.’

Trezise will now be hoping he’s able to head east and take part in a few tournaments in the Far East towards the end of the year.