No Asiad medal for Singapore women paddlers for first time in 20 years
The Singapore women's table tennis team failed to claim an Asian Games medal for the first time in 20 years, after they lost 3-1 to South Korea in the quarter-finals at the Jakarta International Expo last night.
World No. 11 Feng Tianwei had gotten the Republic off to a fine start when she beat world No. 12 Suh Hyo Won 3-1 (9-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-7).
The wheels started to come off, however, after Yu Mengyu (47th) took the first game against Jeon Ji Hee (21st), only to lose 3-1 (9-11, 12-10, 11-9, 13-11) in a tight affair where the winning margins were all by the minimum two points.
Lin Ye (47th) then lost the third singles match 3-0 (11-6, 11-13, 11-3) to Yang Ha Eun (30th), before Feng was beaten 3-0 (11-8, 11-8, 11-8) by Jeon as South Korea strode into the semi-finals and are assured of at least a joint bronze.
Singapore women's team coach Hao Anlin declined to pin the failure on their inability to beat fourth seeds Hong Kong in a Group D encounter on Sunday.
The sixth seeds lost 3-1 and top spot in the group, which could have led to a kinder draw, but Hao told The Straits Times: "It is not about that because there are also other strong teams like Japan and Chinese Taipei that finished second in their groups that we could have faced if we were top."
However, he felt that his players were at a disadvantage because Group D was the only one with five countries while the other three groups had just four.
As a result, Singapore had to play two group games yesterday - they beat Vietnam and Malaysia 3-0 - before the quarter-final, which was South Korea's only match of the day.
Feng added: "I played thrice on Sunday and four times today. The South Koreans were very aggressive today and I could feel the strain and fatigue, which affected my performance."
The women's results have steadily declined in recent years. Over the years, their squads have changed, and they reached their peak when they took silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and then beat China to win the 2010 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Russia.
At the Asian Games, they brought home two silvers in 2006 and 2010, and two bronzes in 2002 and 2014.
But the major medals started drying up from 2016, when they failed to medal at the Rio Olympics and the World Team Championships in Malaysia.
This April, they also lost the Commonwealth Games team gold to India in Australia, the first time this has happened since table tennis became a medal sport in 2002.
The following month, they were lost to Ukraine at the round of 16 of the World Team Championships in Sweden.
Hao, who took over from Chen Zhibin in May 2017, felt that his team have not adapted as quickly as the other countries to the change to the bigger plastic balls made in 2014.
"This has neutralised some of the strengths and advantages our players once had," he said.
"We not only have to adapt, but we need to improve on our fitness and technique, and come up with different playing styles to combat these changes."
Feng, who won a women's singles bronze in 2014, and Yu can still make amends in the singles event. Gao Ning will play in the men's singles and team up with Yu for the mixed doubles.
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