Nanthana wants to play party pooper

SINGAPORE — Thailand are the indisputable kingpins of sport in South-east Asia, topping the medal table six times at the SEA Games — in 1985, 1995, 1999, 2007, 2009, and most recently at the 2013 Myanmar Games.

Athletes from the Land of Smiles have won a total of 1994 gold medals at the SEA Peninsular and SEA Games since 1959, with closest rival Indonesia 327 gold medals behind.

With some 800 athletes out in battle across 36 sports at the 28th SEA Games here, spectators at the 31 competition venues around the island can expect to hear Thailand’s national anthem, “Phleng Chat Thai”, played often, with the Thais favourites to repeat their table-topping feat yet again in Singapore.

But here at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, it is the hosts who are dominating the table tennis courts.

Boosted by the likes of world No 4 player Feng Tianwei in their ranks, Team Singapore’s paddlers are widely tipped to sweep all seven gold medals on offer in table tennis.

The men’s and women’s doubles pairs have already started the ball rolling, with Gao Ning and Li Hu, Zhou Yihan and Lin Ye celebrating Singapore’s first two gold medals in the biennial event yesterday.

While the odds may be stacked against them, Thailand’s veteran paddler Nanthana Komwong wants to play the party pooper here. The four-time Olympian — who is ranked the highest in her team at world No 107 — hopes to inspire her world No 19 team of young players comprising Suthasini Sawettabut, 21, Piyaporn Pannak, 20, as well as 18-year-olds Tamolwan Khetkhuan and Orawan Paranang to a team gold here in Singapore.

“Our women’s team has the biggest chance (for a gold), but it will be a hard match against Singapore” said Nanthana in an interview with TODAY. “Singapore are a very strong team with many good China-born players and they have the strength and skills.”

Nanthana, a former South-east Asian Championships winner, is well aware of the strong threat from Singapore’s world No 3 team, particularly after a narrow 4-3 loss to Lin Ye and Zhou Yihan in the women’s doubles semi-final yesterday.

She added: “Feng Tianwei is the hardest to play because she is so good. But everyone in the team is a tough opponent and their world rankings are much higher than us. We just have to take it slowly and steadily, and take the fight to them.”

Former player turned coach Anisara Muangsuk — who competed in every edition of the SEA Games from 1991 to 2013 before her retirement — knows they have nothing to lose. “It will be a tough fight for us against Singapore as they are too good, but I just want them to play their game properly, relax, and play it one at a time.”