The snooker star had been widely tipped to finish the championships with three gold medals, but his withdrawal means he will leave with nothing.

Defeat in the doubles semi-final ended his and Chuchart Trittanapradit's chances of a gold.

Wattana decided to quit the other competitions after a 5-1 hammering by Pakistan's Shokat Ali and Mohammad Saleh in the bronze medal play-off.

"I think it is best for Thailand if I don't play the team event," Wattana said.

It appears that huge expectations created by playing in front of his home fans in Bangkok had put too much pressure on the national hero.

The eventual gold medallists in the doubles were Malaysia's Sam Chong and Ooi Chin-Kay.

Japan out of soccer

Just four more teams can qualify for the quarter finals of the Asian Games soccer championships after today's set of matches.

Already through are South Korea whose 1-0 defeat of Kuwait meant that both teams qualified from Group two, with the UAE and world cup finalists Japan exiting.

Meanwhile, in Group one, Uzbekistan, already through after two wins, played out a 1-1 draw with Turkmenistan, a result which ensures that they too will advance to the last eight.

World record lift

Chinese domination of the womens weightlifting competition continued with Sun Tianni's world record breaking performance in the 69 kilo division.

World record: Sun Tianni's big lift

She set records in the snatch, jerk and totals, her final tally of 245 easily destroying the previous best of 242.5 held by Tang Weifang.

But Tianni's heroics were offset by the disappointment of her male team-mate Zhang Yong, who failed to make any impact in the 85 kilogram division.

The gold there went to Shahin Nassiri-Nian, with Yong not even managing a bronze.

China's womens table tennis team won the gold with defeat of North Korea, and they did it without star player Deng Yaping.

Their 3-1 victory was made more remarkable by the fact that the Chinese players were all appearing their first games.

Their male compatriots will face South Korea in Saturday's final after defeating Japan. The other beaten semi-finalists were Taiwan.

The Chinese women's badminton team on their way to a debut success

China's women beat defending champions South Korea to reverse the result of the last competition four years ago.

World No 3 Gong Zhichao's straight set win over Lee Joo-hyun gave her team an unassailable 3-1 lead in the best of five match.

The bronze medals were shared by Indonesia and Japan.

In the men's event, Indonesia succesfully defended their crown, beating China after taking the first three games in their match.

Bronze medals were won by Malaysia and South Korea.

Chinese dominant in pool

Wu Yanyan and Chen Yan completed a unique 1-2 for China in the women's 200m medley, with Yanyan clinching victory after swimming a scintillating breastroke leg.

. The pair had finished in the same order in the World Championships.

In the men's 50m freestyle, Jiang Chengji's gold winning performance made him the fourth fastest swimmer this year.

Chen Hua's 800m freestyle victory meant that China took three out of six pool golds on Friday.

Japan took the women's 200m butterfly through Takashi Yamamoto, and the women's 4x100m medley relay, whilst Malaysia won their first swimming gold in these games.