Defeated but satisfied

Clarence Chew and Ethan Poh put up a brave fight, winning the first game before losing 3-1 to China's Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong in the quarter-finals of the World Table Tennis Singapore Smash yesterday.

Their exit marked the end of the hosts' campaign.

The Singaporean world No. 128s had led 4-1 in the second game but a few unforced errors handed the momentum and eventually the game to the Chinese world No. 33s in the men's doubles.

Poh and Chew also took the lead in the next two games but were unable to capitalise and lost 11-13, 11-7, 11-5, 12-10. Still, they were proud of their performance and added that they had learnt a lot from the ongoing tournament at the OCBC Arena.

Chew, 26, said: "We played well in the beginning without any pressure and forced them to make a lot of mistakes. I didn't expect it to be so close, but in the end it's more about the finer details.

"In the second game, we were leading and they made some adjustments while we started to play more conservatively, so we made a few mistakes.

"That's something we have to work on as a pair but overall, I'm very satisfied... and I think we can build on this."

Poh, 23, added: "We need to improve how we deal with tight situations when the scores are really close. The Chinese analyse the situation differently from us, so we have to learn from them as well.

"We can still be proud of ourselves because it's not every day we can give the Chinese a good fight."

Fan, 25, was pleased to reach the semi-finals, adding: "Our opponents were really strong and they did better than expected. We were at a disadvantage after we lost the first game and were trailing in the second but we were more resilient and did better at critical moments."

National men's coach Gao Ning praised his charges but added that they had to work on executing and receiving serves, their on-court movement and placement of the ball. He said: "They played better today and, although (they were) difficult opponents, we had hoped to attack them more.

"They had a chance in the second game but they were rushing and wanted to win each point quickly."

French world No. 67 Yuan Jianan recorded the biggest win of the night, ousting world No. 3 Mima Ito in the last 16 of the women's singles. She beat the Japanese 3-1 (5-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-7).

Yuan, 36, was still in shock after the victory.

She said: "Initially, I was just concentrating on not losing 3-0, and to just win one game. After winning one game, I told myself if I could win a second game, that would be good. I didn't have any specific strategy against her, I just wanted to go out there and play my best."

Ito, 21, acknowledged that Yuan's serve was difficult for her to receive and that she made many errors, but will "be happy and smile a lot" with partner Hina Hayata for her women's doubles semi against Bernadette Szocs (Romania) and Sofia Polcanova (Austria) today.

"I need to work on that next time and I think I didn't show enough strength in the entire game to persevere and win," said Ito. "I tried to smash but Yuan is very tall so she could reach all the shots... so I couldn't consistently attack her."

While Ito bowed out, world champions Fan and Wang Manyu ploughed on in the singles to reach the last eight.

Wang cruised to a 3-0 (11-3, 11-5, 11-5) victory over Puerto Rico's Adriana Diaz, but Fan had to slog for his win against South Korean An Jae-hyun before prevailing 3-2 (11-4, 6-11, 11-13, 11-5, 11-7).

The first finalists of the US$2 million (S$2.7 million) event were also decided in the mixed doubles with Taiwanese world No. 1s Lin Yun-ju and Cheng I-ching taking on Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the final today.

The Taiwanese beat French world No. 2s Emmanuel Lebesson and Yuan 3-1 (11-8, 11-5, 10-12, 11-9), while the Chinese world champions beat world No. 6s Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem of Hong Kong 3-1 (14-12, 11-9, 4-11, 11-9).

Cheng said: "I'm very happy to get into the final. There were some good and not-so-good parts during the match, so we have to discuss them and make some adjustments so that we won't make the same mistakes in the final."

Day 6: Singtel TV Ch115 & StarHub Ch206, 2pm & 7pm