Singapore, deservedly, retained the men and women team titles in the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships at the Thyagraj Stadium today. Our "imported" women paddlers first downed England 3-0 and our "imported men followed it up with a perfect decimation of India for a similar score, taking a little over 90 minutes in all.
The only hiccup, however, was our third "imported" player Ma Liang who was taken to the full distance by India’s Sanil Shetty. But for this minor aberration the Singapore "imports" yet again proved, if any proof was needed, how the rest of the Commonwealth nations in fray lagged far behind us in pace, fitness and the most importantly, the ability to attract foreign players to win medals for us.
Our Singapore "imported" paddlers won a total of six gold medals at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in New Delhi, India today.
In the finals on Friday, the men's doubles pairing of Zhang Jian and Yang Zi took the gold, after defeating their English opponents Christopher Doran and Samuel Walker by 3-1.
Singapore's Feng Tianwei and Yu Mengyu followed that up with a 3-1 victory in the women's doubles finals against England's Joanna Parker and Kelly Sibley.
However, Yu failed to clinch the women's singles gold, losing 3-4 to Canada's Zhang Mo.
In the men's singles finals, it was an all Singapore affair, with Zhang Jian beating his team mate Li Hu 4-0.
The Singapore paddlers have already won gold for mixed doubles and both the men's and women's team titles.