Thilina and Rohana topples Yemen paddlers to enter q/final

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from Qatar

ASIAN GAMES: Promising Sri Lanka table tennis players, Thilina Piyadasa and Rohana Sirisena staged one of the greatest comebacks ever in the Asian Games history as they made their way to the pre-quarter finals in Doha on Monday.

Competing in the men's doubles first round of the 15th Asian Games TT competition at Al-Arabia Indoor hall this morning, Piyadasa and Sirisena showed what Sri Lankan grit is all about as they survived early shocks to power their way to an exciting three sets to two win over O. Ali and F. Gubran of Yemen.

It turned out to be an exciting tussle after the Lankan duo lost an uneventful first set 2-11 inside just two minutes.

Despite some intelligent TT by the Lankan duo in the second set, Ali and Gubran who the second set 11-8 to take a smart 2-0 lead. It was then that Piyadasa and Sirisena staged that mangnificent comeback to win the next three sets and with it a passage to the 'pre-quarters'.

Sri Lanka's combination of Piyadasa and Sirisena won the third set 11-7 in five minutes to reduce the deficit to one set to two.

That was an inspiration for the duo to be more accurate and intelligent in their stroke play to win a nail-biting fourth set 11-9. With the scores levelled and two sets each, Sri Lanka played the decisive fifth set with authority to take a sweet 11-5 win and with it that much needed tie.

But Sri Lanka's Kalpani Herath suffered a double blow when she lost both her women's singles and doubles first round matches played today (4).

It looked the Japanese power of Ali Fukuhara was too much for the little Lankan lass who went down without offering much resistance in under 18 minutes 0-4 - 6-11, 6-11, 3-11, 4-11.

Herath also lost her women's doubles qualifying round match in which she had Rodrigo as her partner. They went down to Lau Sui Fei and Lin Ling, the fourth seeded pair from Hong Kong 0-3 - 3-11, 5-11, 5-11.

Colombo 2006 South Asian Games women's singles gold medallist, Mouma Das too failed to live up to expectations when she failed to make it to the last 16 of the women's singles event. She went down to Thailand's Nanthana Komwong 6-11, 11-7, 8-11, 5-11, 6-11.

It was business as usual for the table tennis top dogs as they made it to the pre-quarter finals of the women's doubles at Doha Games here.

The highly rated Japanese duo of A Fukuhara and Haruna Fukuoka made light of their task, beating India's Kasturi Chakraborty and Mousumi Paul, 11-9, 11-2, 11-6. Only a few ties lasted the full five sets.

The most notable match was Kim Jong and Kim Mi Yong of North Korea against Japan's Hiroko Fuji and Saki Kanazawa.

Mixing fast and furious play with deep baseline rallies, each of their sets lasted longer than the total duration of most other matches. The Koreans prevailed 7-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-13, 11-3.

Fujin was unhappy with her performance. "I am not satisfied with my play. I was a bit tense. It was good to win the first set, but in the second set it was tough for me to receive and it made me nervous," she said after the game.

The only minor surprise was China's Chen Qing and Wang Nan easy win over Singapore's Tan Paey Fern and Zhang Xue Ling. A tighter match had been expected, but the Chinese had little trouble, coasting to a 11-9, 11-3, 9-11, 11-5 victory.

With the top three seeds having received byes, the round of 16 should be more competitive. Guo Yue and Li Xiaoxia, ranked No 4 and No 7 in the world respectively for singles, Tie Ya Na and Zhang Rui, the bronze medallists at the 2005 Asian Championships and 2005 World Championships, and Kim Kyung Ah and Park Mi Young will play their first matches at 18:00 this evening, 4 December.

DOHA, Monday.