Even without world No. 35 Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳), who suffered a back injury on Sunday, Yang Tsung-hua (楊宗樺), Yi Chu-huan (易楚寰) and Chen Ti (陳迪) overcame the setback to win the gold medal in the men’s team tennis yesterday, Taiwan’s first ever men’s tennis gold at an Asian Games.
In the final showdown, Taiwan beat Uzbekistan and its world No. 40 star Denis Istomin 2-1, winning one of the two singles and the decisive doubles, to clinch the country’s third gold medal at the games in Guangzhou, China.
With Yang likely to lose to Istomin in one of the singles, Chen entered yesterday under pressure to win his singles match. Based on his patchy form this year that has caused his ranking to plummet to No. 525, that was not a given.
PHOTO: AFP
He pulled through with a surprisingly comfortable 6-2, 6-4 win over the 467th-ranked Murad Inoyatov.
In the women’s team competition, Taiwan was unable to defend the gold medal it won at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, losing to China 2-0.
Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen (張凱貞) succumbed to China’s Peng -Shuai (彭帥) 6-3, 7-5 in the first singles, while Chan Yung-jan (詹詠然) lost to world No. 11 Li Na (李娜) in the second singles 6-1, 6-1.
In other events yesterday, Taiwan’s Lai Hui-shan (賴慧珊) took the silver medal in the women’s six-red billiards final after she was defeated by China’s Chen Siming (陳思明) 4-0.
In the Wushu men’s Taijiquan/Taijijian, Taiwan’s Hsiao Yung-jih (蕭詠日) won the bronze medal. China’s Wu Yanan (吳雅楠) took the gold and Vietnam’s Nguyen Thanh took the silver.
In the men’s pommel horse, Taiwan’s Huang Che-kuei (黃哲奎) won the bronze medal.
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