CHENGDU, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) — China and South Korea each gained on Saturday to maintain their profitable document intact, making their duel on Sunday a title decider on the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Mixed Team World Cup.
Top seed China dispatched Japan 8-5, whereas South Korea edged Germany 8-6.
With their greatest problem to date anticipated to reach on Saturday, China was dragged into the fifth match to emerge victorious over their arch rivals.
Mixed doubles world No. 1 Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha suffered an early shock, shedding 5-11, 13-11, 11-9 to Miwa Harimoto and Shunsuke Togami.
Wang Manyu outplayed Hina Hayata in straight video games to earn China a 4-2 lead after the ladies’s singles, whereas Tomokazu Harimoto gained two video games to 1 in opposition to top-ranked Fan Zhendong within the males’s singles.
In the ladies’s doubles, Wang Manyu and Chen Meng saved two sport factors within the third to edge Miwa Harimoto and Miyuu Kihara 10-12, 11-3, 13-11, transferring China inside one sport to victory.
Then Wang Chuqin and Ma Long had the job completed, profitable 11-5 within the first sport of the boys’s doubles.
Jang Woo-jin and Jeon Ji-hee moved South Korea forward 3-0 within the blended doubles, whereas Germany responded with veteran Shan Xiaona’s straight-game victory within the girls’s singles, and went on to guide 5-4 after the boys’s singles as Ricardo Walther upset An Jae-hyun 13-11, 3-11, 11-7.
An made amends within the doubles competitors, as he partnered with Lim Jong-hoon to triumph in straight video games to energy South Korea forward 7-5.
Only needing one sport to seal the deal, South Korea noticed Lee Zi-on and Jeon Ji-hee pocket an 11-8 win within the second sport.
Elsewhere, Chinese Taipei overpowered Slovakia 8-3, and Sweden beat France 8-6.
With the ultimate match day remaining, China and South Korea each have 12 factors, whereas China has a superior win-loss document of 48-9 in video games, in comparison with South Korea’s 48-19.
Apart from the decisive contest between China and South Korea on Sunday, Japan will meet Germany, Slovakia takes on France, and Sweden performs in opposition to Chinese Taipei.