by Wade Townsend
With a chunk of the $40,000 prize money and a place at the ITTF World Cup at stake, there was lot of reason to get pumped during the group stage of the ITTF-Oceania Cup in Suva, Fiji.
Alred Dela-Pena and Yoshua Shing put up the most entertaining match of the day, with both athletes blasting their voices and forehands from the get go.
Finding himself 1-2 down, Dela-Pena had 10-7 to level the game score, but a levelheaded Shing didn’t back down and pushed his way to a 3-1 lead.
Not going gentle in to that good night, Dela-Pena fought his way back to a deciding game.
At 8-8 in the seventh Shing made a service tossing the ball sky high, however he only mustered an air swing on the way down. With the fault it looked as though Shing may had been losing his grasp on the match. Down match points Shing parried his way in to a match point of his own. A third ball miss swing from Del-Pena gave Shing the match.
Top seeds David Powell and Kane Townsend secured their semi-final spots in convincing fashion.
In the Women’s Solenn Danger continued her good junior form, only losing to top seed Jian Fang Lay (AUS) who strode almost effortlessly in to the semi-final stage. With Melissa Tapper cruising in to the semi-finals the other nations will be hard tasked in stopping the event being an all Australian affair in the final.
Make sure to catch all the action of the final day live on the ITTF-Oceania Facebook page.
