Thursday, December 6, 2007
10:52 AM
24th SEA Games - Men's Team Finals
After breezing through the first set against Sanguansin Phakpoom, Gao dropped the next two sets as he succumbed to pressure from the home crowd in the closing points of each set, with both sets ending at 9-11. But the Singaporean settled down in the fourth set when he maintained the advantage from the start to the end to win and square the match at 2-2. In the nail-biting rubber set, he built a commanding 5-2 lead but squandered it with several smashing errors to allow the Thai to draw level at 8-8, 9-9, 10-10 and 11-11. It was the Thai who blinked first with two successive errors to give away the match 3-2. "It could have gone either way," said Gao. "I am so relieved!"

In the second match, Yang dropped the first set against Sanguansin Phuchong, 8-11, but handily won the second set, 11-4. In the third set, both players exchanged leads until the Thai seemed to have the set wrapped up at 8-10. But Yang held on and brilliantly played a defensive game to win the set 14-12. "It was very tense out there. I am very glad I overcame my nerves after losing the first set," Yang said. The Singaporean had lost to the Thai in the preliminaries.

Cai played a masterful attacking game in his clinical 3-0 (11-6, 11-2, 11-7) taming of Chaitat Chaisit to give Singapore the third and final point to secure the gold medal. It was a sweet win for Cao as the Thai had beaten him 0-3 in the preliminaries.


With Courtesy from Team Singapore Website - http://www.teamsingapore.com.sg/




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