Tin-Tin Ho’s second appearance at the World Cadet Challenge ended in disappointment in Slovenia as she was unable to progress past the quarter-final stage of either the singles or the doubles on Saturday.

Having been part of the European side that secured a silver medal in the team event earlier in the competition, the young English girl would have been hoping to build on that success in Otocec.

However, things didn’t turn out as planned for the 15-year-old as the Europeans suffered on the penultimate day of competition.

Tin-Tin won her opening singles group game with Ruofei Rao (NZL) comfortably before surviving a tough battle with in-form Brazilian Leticia Nakada 3-2. After a final 3-0 win over Eman Taha (EGY) the English girl progressed as group winner, but her seeding meant she was always likely to run into trouble.

Although she saw off American Angela Guan 4-0 in the last 16, the eighth seed faced one of the tournament favourites, Li Yiran (CHN), in the last eight – the same player who had beaten her in the team final on Wednesday.

As was the case in that match, the Chinese girl was too strong for the English junior no. 1 who may well rue missing out on an opportunity to go 2-1 up in that match after losing a close third game 13-11.

Unfortunately for Tin-Tin that was the end of her campaign in Slovenia as she, and partner Adina Diaconu (ROU) had already suffered a shock defeat in the doubles.

The seeds lost 3-0 to South American duo Adriana Diaz (PUR) and Leticia Nakada (BRA) to end their hopes of picking up a second medal. It was a bad day for both players with Diaconu also losing in the quarter-finals of the singles to Mak Tze Wing (HKG). In fact, only Maria Malanina (RUS) made the semi-finals of the singles from Europe as the host continent’s players all found the going tough.

World Cadet Challenge (Otocec, SLO) Selected Results:
Singles:
Group 8:
Tin-Tin Ho bt Ruofei Rao (NZL) 3-0 (11-6, 11-4, 13-11)
Tin-Tin Ho bt Leticia Nakada (BRA) 3-2 (8-11, 11-7, 11-7, 8-11, 11-7)
Tin-Tin Ho bt Eman Taha (EGY) 3-0 (11-5, 11-7, 11-8)

Last 16:
Tin-Tin Ho bt Angela Guan (USA) 4-0 (16-14, 11-7, 12-10, 11-7)

Quarter-Final:
Li Yiran (CHN) bt Tin-Tin Ho 4-1 (11-1, 8-11, 13-11, 11-1, 11-6)

Doubles:
Last 16:
Tin-Tin Ho/Adina Diaconu (ROU) bt Isabel Albino (ANG)/Mariem Ben Cheikh (TUN) 3-0 (11-4, 12-10, 11-4)

Quarter-Final:
Adriana Diaz (PUR)/Leticia Nakada (BRA) bt Tin-Tin Ho/Adina Diaconu (ROU) 3-0 (11-7, 11-8, 15-13)

Written by Russell Moore (November 2, 2013)