Sarawak players and officials after finishing third overall yesterday
KUCHING: Kuan E Xuan delivered Selangor’s fifth gold medal at the 28th Milo Malaysia Hopes Table Tennis Championship with a hard-fought 4-3 win over top seed Karen Lyne Dick from Sarawak in the Girls U13 singles final at SJK Chung Hua No. 3 yesterday.
In the nail-biting final, Karen lost the first set 6-11, leveled 11-5 in the second, lost the third 13-15 before winning the fourth set 11-4.
The ding-dong battle continued with Kuan taking the fifth set 11- 7 and Karen fought back gallantly to level again 3-3 with a 14-12 win.
Both paddlers fought point for point and Kuan capitalised on the mistakes committed by Karen to triumph 11-8 in the deciding set. Kuan emerged as the biggest winner at the four-day meet with three golds.
Her other two golds were in the Girls U13 doubles and Girls U13 team event.
The Selangor team also captured one silver and five bronze medals to amass a total of 48 points to be crowned the new overall champions.
Defending champions Sarawak could only finish third overall after bagging two gold, four silver and five bronze medals for 42 points, only just two points behind runners-up Kuala Lumpur who had a medal haul of four golds, three silvers and three bronzes.
The host team’s second gold medal came on the final day of competition from Christopher Goh Kho Hian Hui who defeated Too Ying Chuen 4-2 in the Boys U13 final.
In fourth place with 18 points from one gold, one silver and two bronze medals were Negeri Sembilan, followed by Sabah with three silver and one bronze medals and Penang with one silver and two bronze medals.
Teams who won a bronze each were Johor, Kedah, Labuan, Perak and Putrajaya while Malacca and Pahang went home empty-handed. Meanwhile, eight Sarawak paddlers were among those ranked in the top 10 players of the championship.
Christopher Goh Kho Hian Hui was ranked number one in the Boys U13 and teammate Too Ying Chuen number two while Lee Chen Hong and Lee Yee Jat were number nine and 10 respectively.
Karen Lyne Dick finished as the number two player in the Girls U13 and teammate Tay Lynn Jia was number four.
In the Boys U10, Brandon Tan Tze Yuan was the only Sarawakian to have his name on the top 10 list and he was ranked number four.
As for the Girls U10, Sia Hsiao Ling was ranked number two. Assistant Minister of Public Health Datuk Dr Jerip Susil gave away the main prizes and closed the event.
Negeri Sembilan will be the host for the next edition of the annual championship organised by Table Tennis Association of Malaysia.