Taiwan's table tennis players continued to advance yesterday, although the men's doubles team stumbled in an intense match with South Korea in the quarterfinals and was eliminated.
The men's doubles team battled neck-and-neck through five sets with the South Korean side. In the end, Lee Chul-seung and Yoo Seung-min, former Olympic medal winners, used their experience and endurance to triumph over Taiwan's Chang Yen-shu (張雁書) and Chiang Peng-lung (蔣澎龍) 13-21, 21-15, 10-21, 23-21, 21-18.
Although Taiwan's pair had the upper hand going into the fourth set, leading the South Koreans two games to one, they lost ground at the beginning of the set and were never able to get back in the game.
After clawing back to tie the South Koreans at 13-13, Taiwan moved ahead 16-13. But the South Koreans were too strong, taking the set 23-21.
In the fifth set, the South Koreans again used their mental stamina to win 21-18.
Lee and Yoo came in third in the men's doubles competition in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and in Atlanta in 1996.
During the match, the stadium was a cacophony of nationalist enthusiasm with fans loudly cheering players from South Korea, Taiwan and China.
A small group of Taiwanese led most of the cheering for Taiwan, visibly lifting Taiwan's Chiang and Chang when the South Koreans were pressuring.
At times, however, the cheering seemed to take on "state-to-state" proportions as spectators from both sides of the auditorium cheered in apparent competition, some shouting "Go Taiwan!" and others, slightly out of step with cross-strait matters, urged on the Taiwan duo with cries of "Go China!" even though the mainland team had already left the stadium and were not playing.
There was some goodwill gestures on the part of the spectators, as fans from China would sometimes give Chiang and Chang a "go" shout along with Taiwanese fans, but leaving out Taiwan's name.
In the end, neither political correctness nor cheering was enough to push Chiang and Chang through to victory.
Chiang's day wasn't a total loss though, as he moved through to the men's singles round of 16, defeating Greece's Kalinkos Kreanga in a three set match, 25-23, 21-12, 24-22.
Chiang outplayed his opponent with strong serves and quick forehand attack shots.
Chiang, ranked fourth, will face China's Liu Guozheng (
Chang fell out of the men's singles competition yesterday, beaten by Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus in three fast sets, 21-14, 23-21, 21-14.
Chen Jing (
Unlike her singles match on Wednesday, Chen played a fast, hard game sending Toth one screaming forehand shot after another. The entire match lasted just slightly over 33 minutes.
In the quarterfinals today Chen will face Germany's Qianhong Gotsch (
While Taiwan's Chen Tong Fei-ming (童飛鳴) took the first two sets from Japan's Chire Koyama 26-24, 22-20, Chen Tong's stamina began to give out and Koyama prevailed 6-21, 9-21, 15-21 to send Chen Tong out of the women's singles.
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