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SANTIAGO, Chile: At last week's Brazil Open, Singapore's Li Jiawei came close to winning her first Pro Tour title of 2008.
But the 26-year-old, ranked world No 8, came up short against compatriot and top seed Wang Yuegu (No 6) in the women's singles final.
On Sunday, Li finally broke her duck with a 4-3 victory over South Korea's world No 16 Kim Kyung Ah in the singles final at the US$98,000 ($133,500) Chile Open in Santiago.
Li had earlier defeated team-mate Feng Tianwei in the last four and the progress of Singapore's paddlers bodes well as the countdown to the Olympics begins in earnest.
The recent victories at the two tournaments are vital to the team's preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August, according to Singapore Table Tennis Association general manager, Jackie Tay.
"The Pro Tour is part of a series of events in our training calendar and we're very pleased with the results by the team," said Tay.
"Events like the Chile Open are more than just warm-up events as players need to accumulate rankings points in the lead-up to the Olympics as well.
"The players will be competing at other Pro Tour events in China (May 14-18), Japan (May 21-25), Korea (May 29-Jun 1) and Singapore (Jun 5-8) from now till August."
Li, the top seed at the Chile Open, had won four of her seven previous encounters with world No 16 Kim, but the South Korean did triumph in their biggest face-off, the bronze medal playoff at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The Singaporean was also keen to avenge her loss in their last meeting, at last September's Women's Team event at the China Mobile Asian Championships.
It was nip and tuck all the way and with the final balanced evenly at 3-3 (6-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-5, 5-11, 11-7), Li stayed calm and focused in the rubber set to win 11-7, clinching the US$12,000 singles crown.
There was doubles joy for Singapore in the men's event, as Yang Zi and Gao Ning teamed up to also clinch their first Pro Tour crown of 2008, defeating Hong Kong's Cheung Yuk and Li Ching 4-1 in the final.
Singapore's women's doubles pair of Li and Sun Bei Bei came unstuck, though, going down 4-2 to Hong Kong's Jiang Huajun and Tie Yana in the final. - TODAY
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