Sports School and Nanyang Girls' break Raffles' stranglehold

Raffles Institution (RI) and Raffles Girls' School (RGS) were dominant in the competition last year, sweeping all six titles available in the National Schools' table tennis team event.

But the Singapore Sports School and Nanyang Girls' High School broke that stranglehold yesterday, when they defeated their respective RGS opponents in the final to bag the B Division and C Division Girls' titles at Pasir Ris Sports Hall.

With members of the Raffles fraternity making up the majority of supporters in the stands, the Sports School's B Girls' were the first to show their intent, racing to a 2-0 lead against RGS in the best-of-five series.

RGS singles paddler Zermaine Lew kept up hopes of a comeback by winning the third match, but Lew Yen Lin and Wong Xin Ru finished the job for the Sports School by winning their doubles fight 3-1.

Sports School's general manager for table tennis, Dave Lai, praised his charges for their achievement.

"We have been trying to break the Raffles domination, so our kids have put in lots of training and effort," he said.

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"I'm very happy for the girls."

Xin Ru admitted she felt the pressure and was delighted at clinching the winning point for her school.

"We wished that we had finished 3-0, but we told ourselves that if our teammate lost, we would try our best to wrap things up," said the 15-year-old.

CONFIDENCE

"I had confidence in my partner."

The Nanyang team were also 2-0 up in their C Division Girls' final when they were pegged back by RGS' Natalie Lim, who romped to a 3-0 win over Low Min Yi in a singles encounter.

But Nanyang pair Glenda Teo and Ng Yi Hsien edged the next match 3-2 and ensured RGS lost their C Division crown as well.

"My coach said the pressure wasn't really on us; we just had to play our normal game," said Yi Hsien, 13.

"Of course we wanted to win, but we had nothing to lose, so we just tried our best."

RGS teacher-in-charge Dan Ho said the early losses in the series could have affected morale.

"The opposing teams were hungry to beat us, knowing that they lost to us last year," he said.

"This is definitely a lesson learnt. We want to review what we didn't do correctly, because we know our opponents well and we applied an almost similar strategy from last year."

The Raffles spirit still shone brightly in the competition, with RI retaining all of their titles in the Boys' divisions, while also claiming the Girls' A Division crown.

Nanyang Junior College ran RI the closest in the Boys' A Division final, coming from 2-0 down to force a decider at 2-2.

However, RI's national singles paddler Yin Jing Yuan comfortably won his match 3-0 to prevent further surprises.

TABLE TENNIS TEAM FINAL RESULTS

C Div Boys
Raffles Institution 3
Hwa Chong Institution 1

C Div Girls
Nanyang Girls’ High School 3
Raffles Girls’ School 1

B Div Boys
Raffles Institution 3
Singapore Sports School 1

B Div Girls
Singapore Sports School 3
Raffles Girls’ School 1

A Div Boys
Raffles Institution 3
Nanyang Junior College 2

A Div Girls
Raffles Institution 3
Hwa Chong Institution 1