Taiwan's men lost their world team table tennis championships quarter-final clash with Japan yesterday as the victors continued their fine form with some spectacular play.
Teenage star Jun Mizutani took less than 20 minutes to down his opponent Chiang Peng-lung although team-mate Kaii Yoshida faced a tougher battle against Chuan Chih-yuan.
At 10-10 in the fourth game, Yoshida stole match point with a serve that barely scrapped the edge of the table.
PHOTO: AFP
Yoshida sealed victory with a smash that Chuan netted, the ecstatic Japanese jumping around the table pumping his fists in the air. With the writing on the wall for Taiwan, Kan Yo wrapped up his match against Wu Chih-chi 11-3, 11-8, 9-11, 11-4 for a 3-0 win.
"This was an incredible match, an ideal example of a perfect match," Japan coach Yoshihito Miyazaki said, singling out Yoshida for praise.
Miyazaki said his charges were rapidly improving, and warned they were aiming to become a team other top nations, even China, feared to play.
"We are still gradually coming out of the dark ages and we are getting younger players and ... we want to keep building up the strength of the team," he said.
"We want to become in a position where other teams are a little bit afraid of us," he said.
Hong Kong had a tougher time against Romania, before winning 3-1 and are now expected to meet China in the semi-finals.
Li Chin easily beat Romania's Andrei Filimon, who caused a sensation earlier this week by claiming the scalp of China's world champion Wang Liqin.
Romania clawed one back thanks to Adrian Crisan, whose series of rallies with Ko Lai Chak brought roars from the crowd.
But Tang Peng, who has impressed at these worlds, steadied for Hong Kong, before Li returned to defeat Crisan, desperately diving around the table to return the Romanian's smashes.
"Hong Kong have five good players but we have only three experienced ones, and they are exhausted because they have been playing all of our matches," the Romanian coach Dinu Mircea said.
China's men were expected to down the Czech Republic later yesterday, but powerhouses South Korea and Germany were set to fight a marathon battle for the last semi-final spot.
In the women's tournament China moved in for the kill by slaying Hong Kong 3-0 to reach the final.
China, boasting the world's top five players, proved too powerful for Hong Kong, whose paddlers could offer little resistance to the Red Army, gunning for their eighth straight team title.
"We are very unlucky to face China in the semis. If it was another team then we would probably have advanced to the final," coach Li Huifen said.
China, who downed Hong Kong in the final of the last two worlds, are using these championships as a warm-up for the Beijing Olympics when they are expected to take a clean sweep of the golds.
China face Singapore in today's final after the city-state destroyed Japan's dream with a 3-0 whitewash.
Japan, who have won over the crowds this week with their hard-fought and emotion-charged victories, were simply outclassed by Singapore, who boast Commonwealth Games gold medalist Li Jia Wei.
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