Table tennis duo Koen Pang and Izaac Quek aim for smash hit in the New Year
As the sports fraternity welcome the Year of the Snake, a number of Singaporean athletes will be slogging on the courts, fields and greens – training and competing through the festive season. The Straits Times profiles five of them in badminton, football, golf and table tennis.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Singapore paddlers Izaac Quek (left) and Koen Pang are looking forward to the home support during this festive season.
PHOTOS: WORLD TABLE TENNIS
Follow topic:
SINGAPORE – Like many of his Team Singapore compatriots, table tennis player Izaac Quek is used to missing out on festive occasions such as Chinese New Year as a result of training and overseas competitions.
But this week, the 18-year-old will get to have reunion dinner with his family at home for the first time in recent years.
While he will be competing in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Singapore Smash, which is being held from Jan 30 to Feb 9 during the New Year period, fortunately for him his first match will kick off only on Feb 2.
World No. 83 Quek, who spent the festival in Busan, South Korea for the World Team Table Tennis Championships in 2024, said: “I think competing during Chinese New Year is not a very rare thing for me, the past three or four years I have been overseas competing and I’ve missed the celebrations.
“So it’s not very different this year, but I hope to be able to play better after having a break this December.
“My matches start on Feb 2, so there’s still some chance for me to celebrate on the first few days of Chinese New Year. And I hope that I can have some time to ready my mindset for the tournament.”
Since making his debut in 2022, Quek has delivered thrilling moments for the local fans at the Singapore Smash.
In the 2023 edition, he had a brilliant run to the round of 16, first stunning India’s Commonwealth Games champion and world No. 52 Sharath Kamal Achanta, before beating Sweden’s 2019 World Championships silver medallist Mattias Falck (No. 32).
A year later, he and partner Koen Pang, who are currently ranked world No. 7, made the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles.
On his targets for the 2025 event, Quek said: “I am really excited to be given the opportunity to compete against all the top players in the world and I hope to be able to create some upsets.
“The toughest competitors would of course be the top few ranked players in the world, like the Chinese team members. So I guess even if I face them in the first few rounds, I hope to just not give up and to win as many sets as possible.
“Take it step by step and possibly win the whole match.”
Both Pang and Quek, who will compete in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles, are looking forward to the home support during this festive season.
The 22-year-old Pang said: “It would be stressful yet exciting playing in Singapore and I hope I will be able to play better with the home crowd cheering for me.
“The level of the competition at every edition of the Singapore Smash has been really high and this year will not be any different. I am excited to play against the top players in different events and to learn from them.”
Quek added: “I really enjoy playing in front of the home crowd and because of this, it’s one of the competitions that I look forward to the most, and hopefully playing in front of them will make me perform better.
“I hope that since Chinese New Year is here, there will be more spectators since it’s the holidays.”
Some of the sport’s top players will be in action at the Singapore Smash, including men’s world No. 1 and No. 2 Wang Chuqin and Lin Shidong of China, France’s Felix Lebrun (fifth) and Brazil’s Hugo Calderano (sixth).
In the women’s singles, defending champion and world No. 2 Wang Manyu will lead the charge for the title, while men’s doubles world No. 1 Alexis and Felix Lebrun, and Japanese siblings Tomokazu and Miwa Harimoto, who are third and sixth respectively in the men’s and women’s singles rankings, will also be here at the Singapore Sports Hub.
With a busy 2025 season ahead, the Singaporean players will also be gunning for honours at several major tournaments, including the Asian Cup in Shenzhen in February, the World Championships in Doha in May and the SEA Games in Thailand in December.
Quek, who won gold in the singles, men’s doubles and team at the 2023 SEA Games, said: “My target for the SEA Games would always be getting the gold medals in all of my events together with my team.
“Of course the focus will be on the team event... So we will work as a team to get the gold medal again.”
Melvyn Teoh is a sports journalist at The Straits Times.