The Singapore Men’s team, comprising of Clarence Chew, Izaac Quek, Koen Pang, Josh Chua and Nicholas Tan, finished 9th out of 24 teams at the Asian Table Tennis Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, after beating Saudi Arabia 3-1 in the playoffs for 9th and 10th placing in the team event.

Koen Pang scored the first point for Singapore despite going behind, prevailing 11-13, 11-7, 11-7, 11-9 over Ali Alkhadrawi for a 3-1 win.

Izaac Quek increased Singapore’s lead to 2-0, with a 3-0 straight sets victory over Naif Al-Jadal, 11-5, 11-3, 11-9.

The Saudis gave themselves a fighting chance as they cut the deficit to 2-1, when Alim Azzam won the third singles by a score of 3-1 against Josh Chua, 12-10, 7-11, 11-8, 11-9.

Pressure was on Quek’s shoulders as he was tasked of clinching the victory for Singapore, taking on Ali Alkhadrawi in the first of the reverse singles. Taking the first two sets from Quek, Alkhadrawi was looking to be the spoiler of the Singapore party, but with grit and resilience, the 18-year-old Quek, pulled out all the magic in his bag of tricks to reel off 3 wins in a row, 11-9, 11-7, 12-10, to seal the 3-2 win for Singapore.

Despite their 9th place finish, they finished as the top ASEAN team in the competition, ahead of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The Men’s team began the competition strongly, with successive 3-0 victories over Maldives and Qatar in the First Division Group Stage, to top their group and a bye into the semi-finals, where they faced Hong Kong, China. A place in the Champions Division Quarterfinals awaited the winner of the tie.

Izaac Quek took on Baldwin Chan in the first game, and having raced into a 2-0 lead (11-7, 12-10), the 18-year-old just could not close out the game as he fell to 2-3 defeat, with Chan taking the final 3 sets, 11-7, 11-3, 11-5.

However, Koen Pang levelled the tie at 1-1 when he outlasted Wong Chun-Ting, winning a see-saw battle, 11-13, 12-10, 4-11, 14-12, 11-7.

Singapore captain Clarence Chew was then beaten in straight sets by Lam Siu Hang, going down 6-11, 10-12, 8-11, as Hong Kong took a 2-1 set going into the penultimate tie.

The fourth game between Quek and Wong began with the Singaporean besting his Hong Kong opponent in the first set, winning 11-2, before Wong stormed back by taking the next two sets, 12-10, 11-9. Needing to win to stay in the game, Quek showed grit by clinching the fourth set 11-8. However, it was not meant to be for Singapore as Quek lost 4-11 in the final set, and were made to contest the 9th and 10th placing match.

For full results, go to https://results.ittf.com/ittf-web-results/html/TTE2994/results.html#/results