Colombia's Emanuel Otálvaro knocked Li Hechen out of the boys' singles quarter-finals at the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar on Wednesday, which means China will leave the Games without a table tennis medal for the first time.

The 16-year-old won 12-10, 13-11, 11-3, 10-12, 12-10 in 41 minutes. Li, 17, was China's last player left in the competition, after the country's mixed doubles pair and its girls' singles player had already gone out.

How the match turned

Otálvaro had to win the first game twice. He led it 10-7, Li saved all three game points, and the Colombian still took it 12-10. In the second Li reached game point at 10-9 but could not convert it, and Otálvaro won 13-11. The third was over quickly, 11-3.

Li fought back in the fourth, saving a match point at 9-10 and winning it 12-10. The fifth looked settled when Otálvaro led 9-5, but he lost five points in a row and found himself a point from a sixth game. He won the last three points.

Otálvaro thanked supporters in Colombia and across the Americas and said he was "very happy with this win", in comments reported by El Colombiano (translated from Spanish). He added that the aim now was "that medal for Colombia".

He is from Antioquia and has lived in Europe for six years, El Colombiano reported. His parents are with him in Dakar. In the group stage he beat Costa Rica's Lucca Lobo, France's Noah Vitel and Peru's Samuel Duffoo, then beat Spain's Ladimir Mayorov 4-0 in the last 16. Li had reached the quarter-finals by beating Argentina's Agustín Asmu 4-0.

China's first Youth Olympics without a medal

China had won a table tennis medal at every Youth Olympics since the first, in Singapore in 2010. That year they sent one player, Gu Yuting, who won the girls' singles and a mixed team bronze. Fan Zhendong and Liu Gaoyang won all three titles in Nanjing in 2014, and Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha did the same in Buenos Aires in 2018.

That made seven gold medals and one bronze from three Games. Japan, the next most successful country, had two golds and five silvers before Dakar, according to Liberty Times.

This time China's challenge ended in five days. Li and Yao Ruixuan lost their mixed doubles quarter-final 3-1 to Japan's Ryusei Kawakami and Miku Matsushima on Sunday, and Yao went out of the girls' singles in the last 16 on Tuesday, losing 4-3 to Taiwan's Chen Min-hsin after recovering from 3-1 down to 3-3. Liberty Times reported that China had confirmed Li and Yao as their players only at a late stage.

Matsushima into the semi-finals

Matsushima, the 13-year-old top seed, reached the girls' singles semi-finals by beating Poland's Katarzyna Rajkowska 11-4, 11-7, 11-8, 11-6 in 26 minutes. She and Kawakami won the mixed doubles gold on Tuesday, beating Hong Kong's Li Ki Ho and Su Tsz Tung 3-1 in the final.

The girls' quarter-finals also included Germany's Koharu Itagaki against Chen, and Austria's Nina Skerbinz against Su. Kawakami was also through to the boys' quarter-finals.

What happens next

The singles semi-finals and medal matches are on Thursday 5 November, the last day of the table tennis competition. Otálvaro plays the winner of the quarter-final between Hong Kong's Li Ki Ho and Taiwan's Lin Chin-Ting for a place in the boys' final.