NAYPYIDAW — Local paddlers Clarence Chew and Isabelle Li have booked their places in the men’s and women’s singles semi-finals at the Myanmar South-east Asian (SEA) Games, and are assured of at least a bronze medal after making the top four in Naypyidaw.

SEA Games debutant Clarence dispatched Myanmar’s Thet Ko Ko Latt 3-0 easily in his first group match, but the 17-year-old needed to dig deep for his next two encounters against Malaysia’s Muhamad Ashraf Haiqal Muhamad Rizal and Nikom Wongsiri of Thailand to claim 3-2 victories over them. His three wins enabled him to top his group and earn a place in the semi-finals.

Clarence will face Vietnam’s Tien Dat Le today at the Wunna Theikdi indoor stadium, while team-mate Zhan Jian — who is the gold medal favourite with the highest ranking of world No 30 — will come up against Richard Gonzales of the Philippines.

Li, who won a singles silver at the 2011 Games, also kept her medal campaign on track yesterday, by beating Malaysia’s Ho Ying (3-0) and Ian Lariba of the Philippines 3-2 to set up a semi-final clash against Malaysian veteran Beh Lee Wei, who is ranked two places above Isabelle at world No 224. Team-mate Yu Mengyu will face Hoang My Trang Mai of Vietnam in her bid to qualify for the final in the afternoon.

Said Li, 19: “My opponents fought very hard today, I did ample preparations but there were some nerves today. I’m quite satisfied even though I met some challenges along the way with one very close game. I’m not looking at the final yet as the most important thing now is to prepare for the semis.”

The Singapore men’s and women’s team had won two gold medals on Thursday, and will be gunning for two more today to wrap up their SEA Games campaign.

At the 2011 SEA Games, the national paddlers made a clean sweep of all the gold medals in the men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles.