S’pore pair Koen Pang and Izaac Quek’s fairy-tale run ends in semi-finals of World Table Tennis Finals

SINGAPORE - Koen Pang and Izaac Quek’s fairytale run at the US$700,000 (S$942,000) World Table Tennis (WTT) Finals ended with an 8-11, 11-8, 11-5, 11-6 defeat by Japan’s world No. 6 Shunsuke Togami and Hiroto Shinozuka in the men’s doubles semi-finals on Nov 22.

The home favourites will play world No. 2 Alexis and Felix Lebrun in the final on Nov 23. The French siblings beat teammates Florian Bourrassaud and Esteban Dorr 12-10, 11-6, 11-3 in the other semi-final.

Earlier in the prestigious season-ending tournament, world No. 10 Pang and Quek created a seismic shock at the Kitakyushu General Gymnasium in Fukuoka when they swept China’s world No. 1 and defending champions Yuan Licen and Xiang Peng in the opening round on Nov 20.

Since they began their partnership in 2022, Pang and Quek have grown from strength to strength, winning the men’s doubles gold at the 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia.

They also reached the round of 16 and quarter-finals of the 2023 and 2024 Singapore Smash respectively, losing to China’s defending champions Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin on both occasions.

On Oct 12, they secured a surprise Asian Table Tennis Championships men’s doubles silver medal and rose to a career-high world No. 10. They qualified for the WTT Finals as the seventh highest-ranked partnership among eight eligible pairs.

This is their second outing at the tournament after the 2023 edition in Doha, Qatar, where the duo – the first local-born Singaporeans to compete in the event – lost 3-0 to the Lebrun brothers in the first round.

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 title.

Feng then teamed up with Yu Mengyu for the women’s doubles gold in 2012 in China, where current national men’s team coach Gao and Li Hu won the men’s doubles title, which they retained in the United Arab Emirates the following year.

Playing in the WTT Finals had meant that Pang and Quek could not join their teammates at the Nov 19-24 South East Asian Table Tennis Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.

But after picking up his share of the US$4,250 prize money for making the semi-finals, Quek is set for a whirlwind week as he is also pencilled in for the Nov 22-29 ITTF World Youth Championships in Helsingborg, Sweden.

The 18-year-old, 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 – he 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 time.

He will partner compatriot Ser Lin Qian in the Under-19 mixed doubles from Nov 24, and team up with Romania’s Darius Movileanu in the U-19 boys’ doubles from Nov 25, with the singles starting the following day.

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