Taiwanese table tennis player Chen Szu-yu and her doubles partner Lee Ho Ching from Hong Kong on Friday stormed into the women’s doubles semi-finals at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender European Summer Series in Hungary.
Chen and Lee charged into the semi-finals by defeating Taiwan’s Cheng Hsien-tzu and Liu Hsing-yin in straight games 11-6, 11-8, 11-5 in a quarter-final match that lasted 24 minutes and 30 seconds at Budapest’s BOK Hall.
The Taiwan and Hong Kong pairing were yesterday to face the world No. 2 duo of Mima Ito and Hina Hayata of Japan in the semi-finals.
At the quarter-finals match, Chen and Lee took a 9-3 lead in the first game before pocketing the opener. From there, it was deja vu as the Taiwan-Hong Kong pairing again took a 9-3 lead in the second game before taking a 2-0 advantage to the third game.
In the final game, Chen and Lee never looked back as they closed out the match, sending themselves to the semi-finals to face one of the strongest pairings in women’s doubles.
In the men’s singles, world No. 6 Lin Yun-ju of Taiwan crashed out of the quarter-finals after China’s world No. 14 Wang Chuqin beat him 11-8, 11-4, 12-10.
Lin earlier blanked Germany’s Patrick Franziska 3-0 in the round-of-16, where compatriot Chuang Chih-yuan lost to Sweden’s Truls Moregard 3-2.
In the men’s doubles, Lin and Liao Cheng-ting lost their quarter-final match to China’s Wang and Ma Long 3-1.
The WTT Star Contender European Summer Series ends tomorrow, and carries a cash prize of US$10,000 and US$3,500 for singles and doubles winners respectively.
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