SINGAPORE — Two years ago, Singapore’s table tennis team swept all but one of the seven gold medals on offer at the SEA Games on home soil.

Then the world No 4, Feng Tianwei crashed out in the group stages of the women’s singles after a surprise loss to Thai Suthasini Sawettabut, who went on to win gold. Isabelle Li, the Republic’s other representative, also failed to advance from her group.

The pressure is on the Republic to reclaim the women’s singles crown on top of defending its other titles at the upcoming SEA Games, although Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) president Ellen Lee was quick to preach caution.

The team has left “nothing to chance” in preparing for Kuala Lumpur and is currently taking part a one-month centralised training camp.

The STTA has also invited players from Europe, China and Taiwan to act as high-quality sparring partners.

“My own expectation is that they will be able to take everything (all seven golds) out there but I don’t think that is being realistic,” Lee told a pre-Games press conference yesterday. “We are expecting our opponents to do much better than they’ve done (previously) and our players may encounter some injuries during the process, so we do not want to be over-optimistic to say we will win all the golds.”

Lee cited Thailand and Vietnam as Singapore’s strongest rivals but insisted the teams are aware of their responsibilities. “We have not stated so much, in so many words, what we want them to bring (back),” she said.

“But it’s been drummed into them how important this Games is to Singapore. We are known to be the best (in South-east Asia) and therefore have to live up to the reputation.”

However, female paddler Yu Mengyu, who will be Singapore’s other singles representative along with Feng, cut a more optimistic figure.

“We threw away the singles gold last time out,” said the world No 33, who will also pair up with Feng in the doubles. “We are very confident of bringing it back.”

Feng, now the world No 6, will be key to the women’s hopes of doing well and Lee described the STTA’s relationship with the paddler, whom they axed last October, as “very cordial”.

“I can’t comment on her form as she’s been playing all the T2 (Asia-Pacific Table Tennis League) games,” she said. “It seems to be quite okay and so far, we have worked very well.”

Meanwhile, even though the men’s team will be sporting a new look for Kuala Lumpur, hopes are high that it will repeat its 2015 Games results.

Only veteran Gao Ning and Clarence Chew remain from the 2015 team after Chen Feng and Yang Zi retired while Li Hu has been sacked due to disciplinary issues. The other members are Pang Xue Jie who has rejoined the squad after quitting his university studies this February to turn professional, and 18-year-old debutants Ethan Poh and Lucas Tan.

But men’s head coach Liu Jiayi said: “Training has been better than ever and the younger team members have also been working hard ... I hope they can achieve results in the absence of their elder team-mates.”