China's Wang and Sun reach table tennis mixed doubles semis

PARIS - China's Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, top seeds in the table tennis mixed doubles event at Paris 2024, endured a tough contest before securing a 4-2 comeback win over Lin Yun-Ju and Chen Szu-Yu of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals here on Sunday.

The sixth-seeded Chinese Taipei pair started strongly, building a 2-1 lead in the first three sets. However, Wang and Sun, who won consecutive World Championships in 2021 and 2023, played an even more thorough game afterwards, wrapping up the match 7-11, 11-6, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-3 in nearly one hour at South Paris Arena 4.

"There were good and bad takeaways from the match today. It was good that we were able to clinch the victory even though it was not easy. We can do better in taking the momentum from the start of the match," said 23-year-old Sun, who won the women's team gold and singles silver at Tokyo 2020.

"It's good to reflect on the match and take the learnings into the semifinals tomorrow," she added.

Sun gave high praise to her opponents: "Lin and Chen did really well today. It was a very high-quality match. In the end, my partner and I were able to adjust to the match, with the help of our coach."

"I guess we were not able to adjust well enough in terms of strategy and tactics in the latter part of the match. We made some errors, so we were at a disadvantage," Chen said after the match, adding that taking two sets against the world No. 1 pair "is not too shabby a result for us."

Discussing the crucial fourth set, Wang, a 24-year-old Olympic debutant, said: "We just tried to hang on to the match and did our best not to give our opponents too much space to play the shots they want. We gradually found our momentum in the rallies."

Both Wang and Sun had singles matches on Sunday morning, but Wang did not feel that playing singles earlier in the day would wear him out: "We are used to playing multiple matches in a day after playing in so many events. It's not a big deal."

Wang and Sun will next play No 3 seeds Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin of South Korea in the semifinals on Monday, after the latters denied seventh-seeded Ovidiu Ionescu and Bernadette Szocs of Romania in four straight sets.

Also on Sunday, Ri Jong-sik and Kim Kum-yong of DPR Korea, who had surprisingly ousted second-seeded Japanese duo Tomokazu Harimoto and Hina Hayata on Saturday, continued their strong performance and trounced eighth-seeded Swedish pair Kristian Karlsson and Christina Kallberg 4-1 to reach the semifinals.

The DPRK pair will vie for a final spot against fourth-seeded Wong Chun-ting and Doo Hoi Kem on Monday, after the duo from Hong Kong, China upset Spain's Alvaro Robles and Maria Xiao 4-2 in the quarterfinals.

The mixed doubles made its debut on the Olympic stage at Tokyo 2020, with each association only eligible to place one pair in the event.