Chelsea Edghill failed to reach the second round of the women’s singles table tennis tournament at the Tokyo Olympics when she was soundly defeated 4-0 by South Korea’s Shin Yubin on Saturday morning — hours after her dominating 4-1 victory over Sally Yee of Fiji in her opening match.
However, a “solid effort” is what the Guyana Table Tennis Association described Edghill’s performance against the “South Korean sensation,” according to a post on the GTTA’s official Facebook page.
“The number 85th world-ranked player asserted herself early but saw resistance from Chelsea who laid it all out especially in the final match which came down to deuce,” the GTTA said, describing the match that ended 11-7, 11-8, 11-1, 12-10 in favour of Yubin.
“Thank you Chelsea Edghill & Idi Lewis we are extremely proud of you,” the GTTA said. Lewis is Edghill’s coach.
Guyanese Sports Journalist Rawle Toney said in a Facebook post that the 17-year-old Shin Yubin is South Korea’s youngest ever table tennis player at the Olympics and ranked 85th in the world by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).
For Edghill, Toney commented that “her name will forever be in the annals of history as the first Guyanese, male or female, to represent the country in the sport of table tennis at the Olympic Games”.
Table tennis became an Olympic Sport in 1988, Toney said.
