BIRMINGHAM - Malaysia pulled off a sensational upset in the Commonwealth Games table tennis women's team quarter-finals when they eliminated defending champions India 3-2 on Saturday (July 30).
Amid cries of "Malaysia boleh" from their compatriots in the stands, 556th-ranked Ho Ying was the heroine as she kept her nerve to beat world No. 111 Reeth Tennison 3-2 (10-12, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9) before collapsing to the ground in tears as her team-mates mobbed her.
It capped a marathon match spanning 31/2 hours as the momentum swung back and forth dramatically at Hall 3 of the National Exhibition Centre.
Karen Lyne and Alice Chang had given the Malaysians the lead when they beat Sreeja Akula and Tennison 3-1 (11-7, 11-6, 5-11, 11-6) but Manika Batra levelled the overall scores when she beat Ho 3-2 (11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 9-11, 11-3).
India then went ahead when Akula beat Chang 3-0 (11-6, 11-6, 11-9) before Lyne made it all square again when the unranked 19-year-old stunned world No. 41 Batra 3-0 (11-6, 11-3, 11-9) to set the stage for Ho's heroics.
Malaysia will face Wales, who beat England 3-0, on Sunday for a place in Monday's final, while India, whose crestfallen players snubbed the Indian media at the mixed zone, will try to make amends in the individual events.
Ho, a 27-year-old who was part of the silver-winning team at Glasgow 2014, told The Straits Times: "I had been so nervous previously that I couldn't perform. As the most senior player in our team (the others are no older than 21), I felt a lot of pressure too.
"And when we saw that we had drawn India, we felt it would be hard to win, but wanted to give it our best fight any way.
"I was still a bundle of nerves in the last match, but I thought to myself, 'If I lose then so be it, just give it my all and play,' and I managed to play more freely. It was such a relief to finally win."
Malaysia's semi-final, which started at 4pm, took so long that Singapore completed their 3-0 win over Guyana at the adjacent table at almost exactly the same time despite starting at 6.30pm.
Zeng Jian and Zhou Jingyi beat Natalie Cummings and Chelsea Edghill 3-0 (11-5, 11-8, 11-6), before Feng Tianwei made light work of Priscilla Greaves in a 3-0 (11-3, 11-1, 11-4) win. Zeng then defeated Edghill 3-0 (11-5, 11-4, 11-2) to set up a semi-final clash with Australia, who also breezed past Canada 3-0.
In a quarter-final that was far more straightforward than their Causeway rivals', Feng admitted with a laugh that they could afford to steal a glance at the proceedings next to them.
She said: "We are friends from regional competitions and we are happy for them. Beating the defending champions shows how much they have improved."
India had beaten Singapore in the 2018 final to stop the Republic's perfect streak in the women's team event since the sport was included in the Commonwealth Games from 2002.
But Feng said: "We can't be thinking how India's elimination opens things up for us because we have to finish the job on our end.
"To be honest, we knew we would beat Guyana and Australia will beat Canada, so the crunch match was always going to be the semi-final against the Aussies.
"They have two new naturalised players in China-born Liu Yangzi and South Korea-born Jee Min-hyung, who play with backhand pimpled rubbers that can create a lot of changes in terms of spin. While we are prepared, it will be our biggest test yet."
