Nanyang Polytechnic, Wednesday, 7 January 2009 - After previously edging out Singapore Polytechnic 3-2, National University of Singapore (NUS) beat Republic Polytechnic (RP) 5 - 0 in their final Group A men’s Table-Tennis match at Nanyang Polytechnic.

The result ensured last year’s runners-up enter the semi-finals as group winners, leaving the other two teams to fight each other for the right to join them.

Paving the way for NUS’ success was team captain Ni Qi. He beat his RP opponent Kok Ying Jia in straight sets 14-12, 11-7, 11-6.

It was a tense encounter from the first ball as both players traded point for point in the battle of the all-rounders.

After winning the first set on a tie-break, Ni had his first breakthrough in the game when unforced errors from Kok gave him four successive points towards game point in the second set.

Although he saved the first game point, Kok could not prevent the second set loss as he saw his return swirl well wide off the table.

Another wide return from the RP first singles player in the final set that gave NUS the lead after the first match-up.

Having returned from Hong Kong only hours before the match, Freddie Goh carried on where his team captain left off when he doubled the advantage at the expense of RP’s Cai Xu Guang 11-8, 11-4, 12-10.

In the battle of two attack-minded paddlers, Goh’s clever strokeplay, coupled with Cai’s impatience to see off his smashes, saw him clinch the first two sets.

Cai’s persistence with his aggressive strokes seemed to pay off in the third set when he raced to a 6-2 lead.

Giving with all he got, Goh rallied to level the game at 8-8 with some forceful smashes. After a see-saw exchange, Cai’s wide returns gave Goh the final two points of the game.

Goh admitted post-match that when all seemed to be lost in the third set, he simply “just whacked the ball” to get himself out of trouble.

His outstanding play in the second singles also had his skipper’s endorsement who felt what he did in the first set was not in vain.

“I wanted to have a tough game in the opening match so that I can use my performance to motivate my teammates to do the same.”

“Winning for myself is useless, thus I took on the challenge of the opening game to demonstrate the fighting spirit and spread it to the rest of the team.”

“I am pleased to see Freddie doing exactly just that, because he is a different player today from what I saw of him in training.”

“He was previously a high-quality schools player before national service. Thus during training, what we do is to help players like him regain the ball sense that was lost and regain the feel of playing at the level they were previously at.”

“For me the process is more important than the final result. Thus to see him play the way he did, I am very happy.”