Singapore's young women's team exceeded expectations to qualify for the knockout rounds at the World Team Table Tennis Championships in Chengdu, China.
With an average age of 21, and missing stalwart Feng Tianwei, they managed to top a tricky Group 4 and will now face the Czech Republic in the round of 16 on Wednesday.
There, they will be hoping to go at least one step further than they did at the last edition in 2018, when they fell 3-2 to Ukraine at the same stage.
On Tuesday, they concluded their group campaign with an inconsequential 3-1 defeat by Thailand. They had secured top spot earlier by beating Iran and Luxembourg 3-0, and South Korea 3-1, defeating several higher-ranked players along the way.
Their achievement is all the more remarkable, with Feng, a member of the 2010 championship-winning team, now a fulltime student at Peking University.
Esta historia es de la edición October 05, 2022 de The Straits Times.
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