Lessons For The Locals

Singapore's entries on Day 2 all beaten, with only Pang and men's doubles pairings left

- David Lee

For a brief moment, Clarence Chew threatened to turn the tables on China's world No. 4 Liang Jingkun in their Singapore Smash men's singles first-round match at the OCBC Arena on Feb 3.

Down 2-4 in the opening game, the Singaporean southpaw won five points in a row with some aggressive attacking shots to put his more illustrious opponent under pressure, especially in the first three strokes.

But, once Liang got into the groove and established his dominance in the rallies, there was no stopping the three-time world championships singles bronze medallist, who won 3-0 (11-8, 11-4, 11-5) to set up a last-32 match against Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

World No. 170 Chew, who will now look forward to his first-round men's doubles match with Josh Chua against fellow Singaporeans Nicholas Tan and Yang Ze Yi on Feb 4, said: "As the underdog, I tried to be more aggressive at the start and it worked in the beginning.

"But he managed to adapt and change his service and receiving which caused me problems. In almost every aspect, he is stronger than me and I couldn't keep up with the power and angles of his strokes.

"This was a great opportunity to learn from world-class players in terms of how they are able to constantly adapt and switch up play."