(From left to right) Yu Mengyu, Sun Bei Bei, Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei pose with the Marcel Corbillon Cup at Changi Airport after returning from their World Team Championship triumph in Moscow. (Photo courtesy of the Singapore Sports Council)
Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 30, 2010 — The Singapore trio of Feng Tianwei, Wang Yuegu and Sun Bei Bei felled table tennis giants China 3-1 at the World Team Table Tennis Championships final to emerge as the new world champions.
The Singapore women’s team, which also comprises of Li Jiawei and Yu Mengyu, is ranked second in the world after China. They had raced to an early 2-0 lead in the final. In the opening singles match, Feng rallied from two sets down to win the next three sets to beat China’s world number 4, Ding Ning.
Wang then followed up with a four-set victory over Liu Shiwen. However, in the third match, Sun Bei Bei lost to Guo Yan to set up Feng’s epic showdown with Liu Shiwen, the world number 1.
Although Liu had already lost one match in this fixture to Wang Yuegu, she would have still fancied her chances against Feng. The pair have had three previous meetings in world ranking events and Liu had won in all those encounters, the most recent of which came in March 2010 in the Volkswagen Cup final in Guangzhou.
Feng, the world number 2, nevertheless overcame the odds to emerge as the star of the show, beating her nemesis in another five-setter to win Singapore’s maiden World Team Table Tennis Championship.
Women’s Team Final
Singapore 3-1 China
Feng Tianwei (SIN) beat Ding Ning (CHN) 8-11, 3-11, 11-8, 11-9, 11-9
Wang Yuegu (SIN) beat Liu Shiwen (CHN) 11-7, 11-8, 2-11, 12-10
Sun Bei Bei (SIN) lost to Guo Yan (CHN) 11-6, 6-11, 4-11, 6-11
Feng Tianwei (SIN) beat Liu Shiwen (CHN) 11-7, 14-16, 11-7, 9-11, 11-7
For Singapore’s results enroute to the final, go to next page
Even Tan Howe Liang came from China!
No matter who’s house you guys think they play for,
Yu Mengyu, Sun Bei Bei, Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei are the best in the world!
I salute them and their victory!
[…] contrast, Singapore became table tennis world champions with a victory in Moscow, Russia this past week. Yu Mengyu, Sun Beibei, Li Jiawei, Wang Yuegu and Feng Tianwei beat China 3-1 to […]
Congratulations to the China Team for winning the Table Tennis Championship!!! OOPPSS! It should be: Congratulations to the Singapore Owned China Team for winning the Table Tennis Championship!!! ‘Nuff said.
What wrong with you guys? This women team was playing for SG and sang our national antem in Bahasa Malay!!! Spare a thought for them! They’re one of us and please make them feel that way. They indeed played a good games and bring name to our country. And don’t forget that majority of our grandparents or great-grandparents are not born in SG neither! Come on…
just let them be…full of talk…act like they are so proud to be Singaporean, just because their family line arrived one or two generations earlier when in actual fact they are not any much different from the very people they make a mockery of…
At the end of the day, do they actually support anybody tt dons the Singapore flag in the first place? Singaporean or, in their own words, “Singaporean”….
Nuff said indeed…1st HAND citizen indeed…whatever that is…
Ok now..singapore can import Usain bolt, Tiger woods, Serina sisters, they will bring ‘GOLD’ to singapore (at least they speak English)
And for Tv, Import megan fox, Eva Longoria to appear on Phua chu kang & the whole CSI: miami team to be on police & thieves.
The people who support the table tennis team are either wanna be spore migrant or a 2nd hand citizen, so, their comment cannot be taken seriously.
Why must we make life so complicated. If anyone of you participate in sports, whatever the level is, the least you expect is to have the support of your teammates, schoolmates and friends on the sidelines / back at home. I am sure it is the same for national athletes, NO MATTER THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN. Singaporean is Singaporean. My pink IC and your pink IC is the same.
Yes we should feel ashamed. Which country in this world pours cold water and moan about their athlete’s victory?
Support local talent..? S league stadiums are always empty. Indoor stadium barely filled during ABL, away teams during AFC Champions League easily outnumbers home fans by 50 times or more, we boo our national team when they play against liverpool.. would anyone care when an unknown local athlete is playing against a world champion? do we know the names of all our local athletes..?
I know i don’t. But what i don’t do is put down a victory under Singapore colors. If anyone thinks its so easy to buy a winning team and formula….. please think again…..
With 100% players, backup players and coaches coming from China and not even a single local Singaporean played in the game makes me wondering whether sports is really all about winning. I cannot imagine a country with Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps or alike and their coaches representing another country to compete against their home country. Whats the meaning of sports?
What an ignorant and irrelevant comment…
What you are quoting is a READY champion in Bolt and Phelps representing another country. Were the china-born players ALREADY champions when they don singapore colours? I am sure, if they were, China will not allow them to leave anyway. Singapore provided them the platform and training and paved the way for them to be champions! We did not buy the champions.They reached our shores as good players and there is a VAST difference btw that and world class players. Go read up on ya Singapore history, many successful folks in SG were from migrant families. Does that make their achievement any less significant?
Are you asking as a fellow sports person or just someone out to criticize? If its the earlier, you should know better yourself that the meaning of sports defer from person to person, and it defers from recreational / school / national / international / professional levels. Having no experience on what life is like for the latter few, I cant and shall not attempt to guess how it may differ from the way i see it.
But to think that sports is all about winning is wrong.
And I believe you have to qualify to play in the world championships, not like we can anyhow field any player we want..
Goh Keng Swee wasn’t born here but he sweated blood for Singapore. He didn’t have to be a politician. He did not do what he did just for personal advancement in a career or in a sport. He genuinely wanted better things for Singapore. Which is my question when we import foreign players. Are we offering them citizenship, and pride in being a Singaporean. Or simply top level training facilities and competition for them to become the best in the world, somethign which they could not get in their own country?
I have many friends who were NOT borned in Singapore but have taken up citizenship here…. they took up citizenship because they liked it here and wanted to live here (not for some altruistic reasons). And I treat them as one of us. Some of them came for the top-class research facilities we provide. Do we not welcome them? If they made some great inventions/discoveries, would you say the same thing that since they were not born here, so nothing to be happy about?
I’ll say it before and will say it again. These people came here for the chance of playing top level table tennis, not because they loved Singapore so much they wanted to be a citizen. How could they when they barely know our country back then? Yes it is a great sporting achievement to progress from a nobody to a world champion. But thats dedication to your sport and lets not confuse it with dedication to a particular country. Cristiano Ronaldo became the best player in the world at Man United but had his heart set on playing for Real Madrid. Does Singapore then see itself as a club or country?
Well… The French National team for World Cup 2010 have people from Guyana too!!
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/player/_/id/10624/florent-malouda?cc=4716&ver=global
You are confusing nationality with place of birth. As long as one have NOT represented a country before they are allowed to change nationality and represent their new country.
There is Remy Wong with success in bowling but it had never received so much publicity. Is this because bowling is not an olympic event? I believed that there is Remy Wong alike in our local Singaporean table tennis players as well. I just don’t understand why all the players and coaches are born and breed in China. Is there any room for the development of sports talent in Singapore? Or are we only interested in shortcut to success? We could buy Usain Bolt or alike or Michael Phelps or alike and their coaches..whats the meaning of sports then?
Coaches can be from any country and any nationality!!!
The coach for Korea’s team when they made semi-finals was Dutch!!! So now we have a Chinese coach for our table-tennis team… what is the difference with having Raddy as our coach for our soccer team???
As for the players… they are all SINGAPORE CITIZENS!!!…. Or do they have to go through NS before you consider them one of us?
The glory is theirs (the players) not ours (the public). But we do share their achievement, and we do derive some form of pleasure if not really pride.
These girls are imported talent….of that there is no doubt. We should not have issues with whether talent is imported or not, after all we are a nation of migrants and most of “us” have only been “here” for 3 generations or so, and many of us still talk as if “we” are not yet decided if we want to “stay”.
The question here is if we gave some value add to these girls and their endeavours, or we just bought their “instant” success. My submission is that we did provide significant value add.
They were not selected into the national team by their country of birth. They came to us, we gave them a chance to compete, we put in resources and helped them blossom. Their world ranking grew from the effort that they made whilst they played under our brandname. I think it was a good marriage. So we are married to each other now.
BTW, I am proud of the fighting spirit shown by the team, particularly by Tianwei and Yuegu. I saw the game against China yesterday, and I contrast it to the same matchup at the Olympics. In Beijing it seemed that we were just happy to be there…yesterday we fought.
I am proud to be associated with these imported talent, that they have chosen to partner with us, and win this honour as a combined effort.
When we import 100% (coach and players) without even making an effort to nuture and develop our own local good players, I seriously question the meaning of sports here in Singapore?? I do not know why a local Singaporeans are not given a chance to play? When are we going to be like Malaysia who has their team of home born and breed badminton players like Lee Chong Wei, who has won world championships. So please spare me the ho ha in the media publicity…we should be ashamed.
I agree with Tan JH. We should learn to embrace them as one of us. They work hard here, over the years, against the odds. And it is the name of our country that goes on the trophy, not China’s. Hurray for Singapore!!!
Point taken, and I am sure many others may share your view.
Nonetheless, imported as it may be, they were not where they are now when they came in. We did not import a winning team. They are still products of Singapore, who groomed them to what they are today. We should remember that.
These people are Singaporeans, they live the Singapore life. Whether you like it or not, they are one of US now…and for that, this victory is ours.
There’s no glory in winning with a team imported from China!!
3 of out the 4 founding fathers of Singapore were not born here!!! Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, S Rajaratam, Toh Chin Chye. Guess who was the odd one out?
As long as they are Singaporean now and their hearts are here, that’s the most important!