Wong Chun-ting and Chan Ho-wah reach Asian semis
SingTao · 1 SOURCESabout 3 hours ago4 MIN
Summary
Hong Kong pair Wong Chun-ting (黃鎮廷) and Chan Ho-wah (陳顥樺) advanced to the men’s doubles semi-finals at the Asian Table Tennis Championships after a 3-2 comeback win over a Philippine pair on October 24. They will next face China’s Wen Ruibo (溫瑞博) and Yuan Licen (袁勵岑) for a place in the final. In the other notable quarter-final, Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto (張本智和) and Daito Shinozuka (篠塚大登) lost 1-3 to Lin Shidong (林詩棟) and Huang Youzheng (黃友政), ending their run in the last eight. The defeat extended Lin and Huang’s recent winning streak over the Japanese duo after their meeting in the Nagoya Asian Games men’s doubles final in August
Key Points
- Wong and Chan took the first game 11-6, then fell behind 1-2 before recovering to win the fourth and fifth games 11-7 and 11-8
- The Hong Kong duo beat the Philippine pair 3-2, with game scores of 11-6, 8-11, 10-12, 11-7 and 11-8
- Harimoto and Shinozuka were eliminated in the quarter-finals after losing 7-11, 13-11, 5-11, 6-11 to Lin and Huang
- Lin and Huang had also beaten the same Japanese pair 4-2 in the men’s doubles final at the Nagoya Asian Games in August
- Earlier in the tournament, Japan’s men’s team lost to South Korea in the semi-finals, and Harimoto was beaten 11-0 in one game by Kang Dong-su
Why It Matters
For Hong Kong readers, the result puts a local men’s doubles pair within one win of an Asian Championships final against strong regional opposition. It also sets up a high-level test against Wen and Yuan, a Chinese pairing identified in the report as this year’s WTT United States Smash champions