SINGAPORE, June 9 — In his comeback, he was buoyant. Hyper like a fighter, he was high-fiving his coach, skipping across the gravel court and pumping his arm to celebrate the knockout shots.

In victory, Hafizuddin Mat Daud was subdued again, teary. He walked into the stands, where the previously rowdy crowd shed tears of joy with him and hugged him to celebrate his milestone achievement.

 After coming back from 5-0 down, Hafizuddin beat Cambodia’s Thong Choeun 13-6 in the men’s singles final to secure Malaysia’s first gold medal in petanque at the SEA Games in Singapore yesterday.

“I was down, but my coach, my friends ... my people, they all gave me encouragement and confidence,” he said. “I started to think that I could do it, I could do it for Malaysia.

“I was very emotional, because this is the first gold medal for (Malaysia) in the sport of petanque.”

Hafizuddin lost his opening game in the preliminaries 13-5 to Laos’ Phoudthala Keokannika, but won his next seven games to secure a place in the play-offs. He easily beat Phoudthala in the semi-finals and, after conceding a big early lead to Thong, dominated the latter stage of the final.

In the women’s gold-medal match, Fueangsanit Nantawan trailed 7-0 before recovering to beat Cambodia’s Un Sreya 13-8 and give Thailand another title.

Mohamad Noor Abdul Rahim, deputy president of the Olympic Council of Malaysia, praised the 22-year-old Hafizuddin, who has played petanque for eight years and had previously won bronze in the SEA Games, as well as his coach Syed Akil, a former national team player.

Said Mohamad Noor: “It’s a first. A day of celebration. It was a very good comeback.” — TODAY