Young Singapore table tennis team gunning for upsets at Asian Games

SINGAPORE – After returning home empty-handed from the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, the Singapore table tennis team are aiming for breakthroughs when the Asiad is held in Aichi-Nagoya from Sept 19 to Oct 4.

Three years ago, they were a team in transition after the Singapore Table Tennis Association’s (STTA) move away from China-born talents to develop more local-born players, with their medal-less run in China a first for the sport this millennium.

Yu Mengyu was the last Singaporean player to win an Asiad medal with her women’s singles bronze in 2018.

With a mix of debutants and seniors in the 10-strong squad this time, STTA president Poh Li San noted that there are no medal targets for the team, but she remains confident in their ability to cause upsets based on recent results.

Stressing that Singapore are underdogs at the quadrennial event, Poh said at the STTA media day held at their OCBC Arena headquarters on Aug 31: “We are fielding a young team averaging 22 years old, to lead the charge against more senior and experienced Asian table tennis powerhouses.

“Five are debutants and six are full-time students juggling heavy academic workloads with training and competition.”

The table tennis chief, who was re-elected on Aug 24, added: “They are also our best players who have been sharpened and toughened via the highly competitive World Table Tennis circuit.

“They have done very well, particularly at the Singapore Smash and the Asian Table Tennis Championships where they met very strong opponents, kept their cool, and played their best.

“All we want from this very young team is to go out there and fight for every point, make breakthroughs, and the results will follow.”

There have been encouraging milestones.

Ranked 26th in the world and eighth in Asia, the men’s team of Clarence Chew, 30; Josh Chua, 25; Koen Pang, 24; Izaac Quek, 20; and Ellsworth Le, 18, retained their SEA Games gold in December 2025, with Quek also retaining his men’s singles crown and men’s doubles title with Pang.

World No. 10 pair Quek and Pang, the silver medallists at the 2024 Asian Table Tennis Championships, reached a career-high fourth in the world rankings in February.

Quek, who will be playing in the men’s team, singles, doubles, and mixed doubles events, said: “I want to play well in every event, and will give it my all. We have expectations of ourselves but we want to adopt the mentality of challengers against the best in Asia.

“I lost in my first singles match and our second men’s doubles match at the last Asian Games and I definitely want to advance further this year.”

Meanwhile, ranked 14th in the world and sixth in Asia, the women’s team of Zeng Jian, 29; Tan Zhao Yun, 21; Ser Lin Qian, 20; Chloe Lai, 19; and Loy Ming Ying, 16, won a surprise bronze at the 2025 Asian Table Tennis Team Championships, with Tan’s defensive chopping style and Lai’s backhand pimple adding more depth and variety.

Teenagers Lai and Ming Ying also became the first local players to qualify for the women’s doubles quarter-finals at the Singapore Smash in February, before the latter teamed up with Quek to reach the World Table Tennis Feeder Olomouc mixed doubles final in August.

Ming Ying will be making her Asiad bow alongside Chua, Le, Tan and Lai. She said: “Playing more big competitions gives me more experience and I can learn from the better players heading into my first Asian Games, where I will do my best to play like I have in training.”

The players will head to Shimada for a Sept 1-17 training camp, where they will spar with players of different playing styles from hosts Japan, China, Chinese Taipei and Europe.

National women’s team coach Jing Junhong said: “I have always said I would like the players to be more aggressive and clinical, and through stressful training conditions and international competition, we have seen more of that.

“They have done well to beat higher-ranked opponents, and they played above themselves to win the Asian team bronze.

“Hopefully, they can do so again, play without the weight of expectations, and be even more aggressive and clinical than before.”

National men’s team coach Gao Ning added: “Through the rigours of such training camps and international competition, we are raising our levels, including the consistency of our senior players and the quality of our younger ones.”