The Taiwanese women’s basketball team pulled ahead with a 15-0 run in the third quarter to beat Japan 76-63 in the preliminary rounds of the East Asian Games in Hong Kong yesterday, virtually assuring them a place in the next round.
Taiwan had a weak start before pulling even 15-15 at the end of the first quarter. Aggressive play by Chen Yu-chun and Chang Shih-chieh in the second quarter put Taiwan ahead 36-32 at halftime, but the third quarter proved decisive as Taiwan strengthened their defense, denying Japan any points, while Liu Chun-yi attacked on the inside to score 15 points.
A fierce counterattack by Japan in the fourth quarter narrowed the difference from 22 to 11 points, but Cheng Hui-yun widened the gap to 13 points at the end of the match.
PHOTO: AFP/ASIA TOUR
Liu was Taiwan’s top scorer with 22 points, followed by Cheng with 19, while Yoshie Sakurada scored 21 points for Japan. Taiwan have one more match against South Korea in the preliminaries before the next round begins.
Meanwhile, China guaranteed their first gold at the Games with victories in both semi-finals of the men’s snooker competition.
China are expected to dominate the nine-region event after a successful Olympics campaign on home turf — they won 51 gold medals in Beijing last year — and the team locked up their first gold medal a day before the official start of competition.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In the men’s snooker semi-finals, Yu Delu beat Taiwan’s Wu Yu-lun 4-1 and Tian Pengfei beat South Korea’s Kim Do-hoon 4-0 to guarantee China gold and silver. Yu had a surprise win over the world No. 8, Hong Kong’s Marco Fu, in the quarter-finals.
After advancing to the semi-finals in the table tennis men’s and women’s team events, China’s paddlers got off to a mixed start in the individual events yesterday. Fielding mostly newcomers, four Chinese pairings lost in the men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, but Yao Yan, Wen Jia and Xu Xin won their opening singles matches.
In the men’s volleyball, Hong Kong beat Guam 3-0.
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