Charlotte Carey agonisingly bowed out of the World Table Tennis Championships in Budapest after an epic hour long duel.
Wales’s No 1 took her South Korean opponent Zion Lee – ranked 60 places higher than her in the world at 77 – to a deciding game in the best of seven battle.
The 22-year-old from Ebbw Vale won the first two games 11-8, 11-8 before Lee hit back to reel off the next three (11-9, 13-11, 11-7) in the round of 128 match.
Carey responded to take the next 11-5 to take the knock-out match into a decider which she led until the Korean took reeled off the last five points in a row to win it 11-9.
So close. Heartbreaking stuff losing 11-9 in the 7th against Korean. Happy with how I played, gutted with the result 💔🏓 https://t.co/7KnCXKf63T
— Charlotte Carey (@charlcareytt) April 23, 2019
Carey had progressed to the knock-out stages after winning her group in the Hungarian capital.
The five-time Welsh champ whitewashed Lea Houngue of the Ivory Coast 4-0 before beating Guatemala’s Lucia Cordero 4-2.
Team-mate and hot Welsh prospect Anna Hursey – who competed at last year’s Commonwealth Games aged 11 – faced tough, vastly experienced opposition in her group.
The Cardiff youngster narrowly lost her first game 4-3 to Vietnam’s Khoa Dieu Khanh Nguyen and then was beaten 4-0 by group winner Pauline Chasselin of France.