South Korea lost to China in the semifinals of the women’s table tennis team event at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, going down without much of a fight against the world No. 1 unit.
Shin Yu-bin, Jeon Ji-hee and Lee Eun-hye went down 3-0 against Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng and Wang Manyu after one doubles and two singles matches at South Paris Arena 4 in Paris.
South Korea will now try to salvage a bronze medal in the third-place contest Saturday, against the loser of the other semifinal match between Germany and Japan.
Sun, Chen and Wang are 1-2-3 in the women’s singles world rankings, and they were too much for the South Koreans to handle.
In the opening doubles match, Shin and Jeon lost to Chen and Wang 3-1 (11-4, 11-5, 9-11, 11-9). After dropping the first two games, the South Koreans built a 7-2 lead in the third game, only to be caught at 9-9. But Shin and Jeon grabbed the final two points to make it a 2-1 match.
They rallied from an 8-2 deficit to draw even at 9-9 in the fourth game, but then conceded
the next two points to allow the Chinese duo to close out the match.
In the next singles match, Sun humbled Lee Eun-hye in a 3-0 (11-5, 11-1, 11-3) victory, with the South Korean wearing an exasperated look.
Wang then beat Jeon 3-0 (11-3, 11-7, 11-3) to send South Korea to the bronze medal match. Wang jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the third game in a blink and closed out the match without breaking a sweat.
Source : Yonhap News Agency