S'porean Izaac Quek, 18, knocked out of Paris Olympics after table tennis men’s singles defeat

Singaporean Izaac Quek, 18, lost his debut match in the Olympic Games but put up a strong fight against the higher-ranked opponent.

He was up against Slovenia's Darko Jorgic, who has a world ranking of 18th on the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) list.

Quek is ranked 83rd on the same list.

Put up a tough fight

Quek won the first game at 11-8, taking a five-point lead against Jorgic at one point.

After losing the second game, Quek also lost the third and fourth games — but by increasingly narrow margins.

With his opponent one game away from victory, Quek remained undeterred, taking the fifth match with an eight-point difference.

Jorgic put up a strong showing for the sixth match, with Quek down to a six-point deficit.

The game soon entered match point, but as Quek scored consecutively to close up the gap, Jorgic called for a timeout.

Jorgic took the point after the timeout, along with Quek's chances of advancing to the next round.

Qualifying for Olympics was dream come true

In a May 11 post, Quek shared that his "biggest goal" has been to represent Singapore at the Olympics since he started playing table tennis at the age of seven.

He wrote: "Being overseas almost 75% over the past 1.5 years, there were countless amounts of tiring days but i’m just happy I didn’t give up."

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Last year, he won three gold medals at his first South East Asian (SEA) Games.

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Top photos from Izaac Quek's Instagram & Team Singapore