Nathan Xu paired up with Team Europe’s Elena Zaharia to claim the silver in the Mixed Doubles at the 2018 ITTF World Cadet Challenge on Wednesday 31st October in Tottori, Japan.

The match went right down to the wire, with Xu and Zaharia narrowly missing out on gold, losing 2-1 (4, -7, 9) to Iulian Chirita and Yukari Sugasawa.

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After an EPIC battle Nathan Xu came away with silver in Mixed Doubles at #ITTFWorldCadets. 🥈

A post shared by ITTF-Oceania (@ittfoceania) on Oct 31, 2018 at 4:31am PDT

Xu was humbled by the experience.

“I’m honoured to be the first silver medallist from Oceania at the World Cadet Challenge. Thank you to Elena my mixed doubles partner and everyone who supported us.” Nathan Xu

The medal marks Team Oceania’s continued success in the event with Zhiying Cheng and Danni-Elle Townsend winning bronze in the event in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Nathan Xu also provided their strongest performance in the Singles events. The Kiwi finished 18th overall, picking up a solid 3-1 win over the World No. 8 Jacobo Vahnish along the way. Meanwhile, Fiji’s Vicky Wu had a career best finish at the World Cadet Challenge. In Tottori, making his third appearance at the event, Wu was able to finish 24th overall; Team Oceania’s second highest placing.

In the Girls’ Singles it was Jiayi Zhou with the highest finish, winning 3-2 against Team Hopes’ Sophie Earley to finish 25th.

Check out the full results here.