Taiwan’s women’s table tennis team yesterday crashed out of the quarter-finals after Japan defeated them 3-0.
The world No. 3 pairing of Cheng Hsien-tzu and Chen Szu-yu were unable to overcome the world No. 1 Japanese pair of Miu Hirano and Kasumi Ishikawa, who downed the Taiwanese 11-8, 11-6, 11-5 in just 24 minutes of play.
It was a sad repeat of their loss to the Japanese duo in March at the World Table Tennis Contender tournament in Doha.
Photo: AFP
The loss was compounded when Cheng I-ching fell to Japan’s Mima Ito 11-2, 11-9, 11-8 in 27 minutes of play, which was quickly followed by Chen’s defeat at the hands of Hirano 11-9, 7-11, 11-4, 11-4.
Cheng Hsien-tzu and Chen, both 28, on Sunday had beaten the US team of Lily Zhang and Yue Wu 11-6, 6-11, 12-10, 11-8, with 29-year-old Cheng I-ching felling American Hujing Wang 11-5, 11-1, 11-4 and Chen beating Juan Liu 11-13, 11-4, 16-14, 11-4.
Cheng I-ching on Monday last week earned Taiwan its first Olympic table tennis medal in 21 years with mixed doubles partner Lin yun-ju, when they downed the French pairing of Emmanuel Lebesson and Yuan Jia Nan to bring home the bronze.
Japan today face Hong Kong in the women’s team semi-final, while Taiwan’s men’s team face Germany in the quarter-finals.
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