C'wealth Games: Isabelle and Clarence show guts in glory

Paddlers Clarence Chew and Isabelle Li had to dig deep into their resources to beat Malaysia's Ashraf Haiqal Rizal and Lee Rou You in the third round of the mixed doubles last night at the Scotstoun Table Tennis Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

The pair won a tense fifth game 15-13 to win 3-2 and advance to the Round of 16 at the Commonwealth Games.

In a see-saw battle, Malaysia won the first and third sets 11-9 and 11-7, with 19-year-old Li and 18-year-old Chew levelling the scores each time in games two and four (11-6, 11-8), respectively.

The young duo, who earlier beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in the second round, will face Canada's Wang Zhen and Zhang Mo in the fourth round.

Singapore's top three seeds in the mixed doubles all won their second and third round matches yesterday.

Feng Tianwei and Zhan Jian made light work of their opponents from Malaysia, winning 3-0 in 17 minutes.

The top seeds defeated Lee Wei Beh and Shakirin Ibrahim 11-8, 11-7, 11-7.

In the second round, Feng and Zhan took just 12 minutes to brush aside Ghana's Mareen Adom Amankwaa and Bernard Sam 3-0.

Second seeds Gao Ning - who won silver with Feng four years ago - and Lin Ye also had a comfortable start with a 3-0 second-round victory over Vanuatu's Yoshua Shing and Anolyn Lulu.

Shing was just delighted to have given Gao (right) some difficult moments.

Showing a sense of humour despite the loss, he said: "I've known Gao for a long time and he is one of the best players I've ever seen. I'm 2,000 in the world, and he is in the top 12.

"I'm just happy he missed some of my returns. I think he was a bit nervous and a bit stressed."

Later, Gao and Lin defeated Naomi Owen and Stephen Jenkins of Wales in the third round 8-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-4.

Third seeds Yu Mengyu and Li Hu also had straightforward victories, beating Barbados 3-0 in the second round and Guyana 3-0 in the third.

The women's singles - the top 16 seeds enter the fray for the first time -men's doubles and mixed doubles all resumed early this morning (Singapore time).

This article was first published on July 31, 2014.
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