Koen Pang and Izaac Quek qualify for World Table Tennis Finals
Following their surprise Asian Table Tennis Championships men’s doubles silver medal on Oct 12, Koen Pang and Izaac Quek had more reasons to celebrate as they rose to a career-high world No. 10 and qualified for the World Table Tennis (WTT) Finals again.
The duo will play in the Nov 20-24 event in Fukuoka, Japan, as the seventh highest-ranked partnership among eight pairs. They were the first local-born Singaporeans to feature in the tournament when they lost 3-0 to French brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun in the first round of the 2023 edition in Doha, Qatar, in January.
To feature among the world’s elite reaffirms Pang’s belief in himself as he works towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. He had narrowly missed out on qualifying for Paris 2024 in the mixed doubles with Wong Xin Ru and in the men’s singles.
Pang, 22, told The Straits Times: “This does not make up for the disappointment of missing out on the Olympics, but gives me some confidence in myself to push for LA 2028.
“I feel really excited about the opportunity to play in the WTT Finals again. Izaac and I have a lot of chemistry between us, so we understand each other’s game really well. But there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially when we get into the rallies. My target going into Fukuoka is to have fun and play the best table tennis I can.”
The Singapore Table Tennis Association expressed its pride for the duo’s “remarkable achievement in qualifying for the WTT Finals twice in a row” and hopes playing against the world’s best players will aid in their development.
Before the event was rebranded as the WTT Finals, the Republic had performed admirably in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Tour Grand Finals.
In addition to previous medals, Gao Ning and Yang Zi claimed the men’s doubles crown, while Li Jiawei and Sun Beibei were the women’s doubles champions in Macau in 2008. Two years later in South Korea, Feng Tianwei won the women’s singles competition.
Feng then teamed up with Yu Mengyu for the women’s doubles gold in 2012 in China, where Gao and Li Hu won the men’s doubles title, which they retained in the United Arab Emirates the following year.
This year, the US$700,000 (S$934,000) tournament will feature the top-16 men’s and women’s singles players and the top-eight pairs in both the men’s and women’s doubles.
In the women’s singles, world No. 1 Sun Yingsha will be looking to extend her unbeaten streak in the WTT Finals as she hunts for her fourth straight crown, while men’s singles world No. 1 Wang Chuqin is aiming for a three-peat.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, the men’s doubles competition returned only in 2023 with China’s world No. 2 Yuan Licen and Xiang Peng looking to defend their title. However, there will be new winners in the women’s doubles as Wang Manyu, who won the title with Sun in 2023, has qualified with Chen Meng as world No. 1.
Because of the tournament, Pang and Quek will not join their teammates at the Nov 19-24 South East Asian Table Tennis Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
But 18-year-old Quek is still set for a whirlwind week as he is also pencilled in for the Nov 22-29 ITTF World Youth Championships in Helsingborg, Sweden, where he will partner compatriot Ser Lin Qian in the Under-19 mixed doubles from Nov 24, a day after the WTT Finals men’s doubles final.
Quek, who won silvers in the U-19 boys’ doubles with Japan’s Sora Matsushima and the U-19 mixed doubles with Germany’s Annett Kaufmann in the 2023 edition, and lost to China’s eventual triple champion Lin Shidong in the U-19 boys’ singles last 16, will also be playing in all three events this year.
He will team up with Romania’s Darius Movileanu in the U-19 boys’ doubles event, which begins on Nov 25, with the singles starting the following day.
Quek said: “Playing consecutive competitions is not something new to me. I’m quite used to playing multiple tournaments in a row. It’s quite normal and I don’t think I’ll be tired. I’ll try my best in both tournaments, prepare as best as I can, and try to win our first match at the WTT Finals with Koen.
“I’m also really excited to compete and see how I match up against players of the same age group as me at the World Youth Championships.
“Even though I won two silvers at the last edition, the pairings are different this time so I need to reset, take it one match at a time and hopefully do well with Lin Qian and Darius.”
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