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Taiwan nabs fifth gold at Macau meet

Chan Yung-jan (詹詠然) beat compatriot Chan Chin-wei (詹謹偉) 6-2, 6-1 in the women's tennis final yesterday to capture Taiwan's fifth gold medal of the East Asian Games.

Chan relied on a solid backhand and a strong serve at Macau Tennis Academy, closing with a deft backhand winner in 1 hour, 19 minutes.

The match had to be stopped several times as Chan Chin-wei received treatment for lower back pain, but Chan Yung-jan said that didn't effect her game.

"It didn't bother me," said Chan, who has been a professional for 18 months and is ranked No. 210 on the women's tour.

"That happens all the time in tennis and I just tried to stay focused and play my game."

In a men's semifinal, Taiwan's Wang Yeu-tzuoo (王宇佐) had a 6-2, 6-2 victory over South Korea's Kwon Oh-hee to book a place in today's final, where he'll face Japan's Toshihide Matsui, a 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 winner over South Korea's Lee Seung-hoon.

Elsewhere, Kwon Hyung-tae withdrew from the men's doubles due to injury, giving compatriots Kim Dong-hyun and Kwon Oh-hee a walkover victory for the gold medal.

Taiwan finished women's basketball preliminaries undefeated after a 63-58 win over South Korea. The same teams will meet again in today's semifinals.

China (3-1) will face Japan (2-2) in the other semifinal.

Japan more than doubled its gold-medal haul to 21 yesterday with a scintillating performance on the track which breathed life into its East Asian Games campaign.

Another one-two in the men's and women's 400m helped Japan claim 10 out of 13 athletics events and 11 from 18 overall as competition continued.

Runaway leader China, which dominated the first five days, snapped up the three remaining athletics titles to move its massive total on to 78 gold medals out of a possible 132. Third-placed South Korea claimed three more golds to reach 14.

Japan's distance runners enjoyed a bumper morning with Toshinari Fujimoto winning the men's half-marathon in one hour, eight minutes and 14 seconds from South Korea's Huh Jang-kyu.

Yoshiko Ichikawa won the women's half-marathon in 1:16:31 and Yoshitaka Iwamizu took the men's steeplechase.

But more was to come from Japan, whose vaunted swimmers were blown out of the water by China late on Wednesday.

China's Chen Lisha, who won the women's 200m on Wednesday, built up a huge lead in the 4x100 before Ni Xiaoli was pegged back by Rina Fukimaki on the third leg. Ayumi Suzuki closed out the win.

In the men's relay, Taiwan also led until the third leg before being reeled in by Yusuke Omae and Shinya Saburi as Japan clocked 39.61. China finished third.
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