On a day of disappointing results for Cambodia in the men’s draw, Andrea Ka provided some cheer by moving into the women’s singles quarterfinals to be within one win from a historic SEA Games medal at the 29th edition of the regional multisport event in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.

The France-born Cambodian Ka hammered Vietnam’s top player Ngoc Si Boi 6-1, 6-1 to set up a meeting with Malaysia’s Chua Aslina for a place in the semifinals.

American-Cambodian player Som Chhinda, however, lost her singles first round 6-0, 6-2 to Vietnam’s Thuy Tranh Truc.

Later, the Ka-Chhinda pairing lost to the Malaysian combination of Binti Jawairiah and Selva Theiviya 6-1, 7-6 in the women’s doubles.

The Kingdom’s other women’s doubles hopefuls, teenagers Hour Sreypov, 17, and Ho Sreynoch, 16, were blanked out 6-0, 6-0 by Lehnert Katharina and Dy Denise of the Philippines.

In the men’s section, a mid-match rally by Bun Kenny raised hopes of a comeback, but they were quickly thwarted by Alacantara Francis of the Philippines, who played an exquisite third set to polish off the tie 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.

Kenny’s Davis Cup teammate Long Samneang was no match for Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Thien, who cruised to a 6-1, 6-3 victory.

In the men’s doubles, Kenny and Mam Phalkun lost to Ahmad Deedat and Hao Sheng of Malaysia 6-2, 6-3, while Long Samneang and Our Sarith went down 6-1, 6-2 to the Indonesian pair of Aditya Sasongko and Sunu Trijati.

There was joy for the Kingdom’s basketballers after they lost their first two group games to Singapore and Vietnam, as Cambodia posted a 93-58 win over Laos, with Anthony Dar, Pek Mith and William Em combining well to keep the scoreboard quickly ticking over.

Storming to 15-0 in the first six minutes, Cambodia came away from the first quarter at 28-9 and were sitting pretty at 51-31 at half-time.

Coach Austin Koledoye made more rotations and gave playing time to the whole squad with an eye on the next game against Indonesia.

After the break the enterprising 20-year-old Tommy Chea caught the eye with steals and quick baskets as Laos struggled to cope with the pressure and the pace.

The Massachusetts-based Chea signed off in style with a dunk to finish as the top scorer with 24 points.

Cambodia take on Indonesia in the final group game today at 2:15pm Cambodian time.

Bronze in boxing, petanque

Cambodia bagged another bronze medal, this time in the men’s 56kg boxing competition, after Nat Siek Nin lost 5-0 to Mario Fernandez of the Philippines in the semifinals.

In petanque, world champion Sok Chanmean picked up a bronze medal after suffering a narrow 10-13 defeat at the hands of Malaysia’s Muhammad Bim Mat Daud in the men’s singles semifinals on Monday evening.

The gold hopes in the women’s singles were also dashed when Un Sraya fell 5-13 to Nguyen Thi Thi of Vietnam in the semifinals and also ended up with a bronze.

Cheered on by a huge partisan crowd, hosts Malaysia defeated Cambodia 25-18, 30-28, 25-15 in their men’s volleyball match on Monday.

A stadium filled to capacity vociferously rooted for Malaysia as they survived a stout-hearted performance from Cambodia in a close and an extended second set, the loss of which clearly had a marked impact on the final outcome as the Kingdom’s spikers lost momentum.

All three karate exponents on view yesterday lost their fights. Phun Kimsrieng was beaten 3-0 by his Laos rival in the -55kg class.

Kim Sovannara lost 3-1 to his Brunei opponent in the 60kg category, while Cheng Chanthara lost 5-0 to an Indonesian fighter in the quarterfinals.

In swimming, Kim Lim Oudom finished sixth in the men’s 50m backstroke with a time of 30.50sec.