The South Korean pair of Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee secured the silver medal in the women’s doubles final with a 3-0 (11-7 11-9 11-6) victory over the world number one pair of Sun Yingxia and Wang Manyu (China) in the quarter-finals of the 2023 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships in Durban, South Africa, on 26 June (local time).
It is the first time in 30 years that a South Korean has reached the women’s individual final at a world championship since 1993 in Gothenburg, Sweden, when Hyun Jeong-hwa won the women’s singles gold medal. Shin and Jeon are just one step away from crossing another great wall and bringing gold to Korean table tennis for the first time since Hyun.안전놀이터
In women’s doubles alone, it will be 36 years since Yang Young-ja and Hyun Jung-hwa won gold in New Delhi, India, in 1987. Their opponents in the final will be the seventh-ranked women’s doubles pair of Wang Yidi and Chen Meng (China), and the match will begin at 1.30am local time on the 28th.
The Chinese duo pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament after aggressively attacking against defending champions and world number one and two in the singles rankings, Sun Yingxia and Wang Manyu. Sun Yingxia and Wang Manyu were stunned by the speed of Jeon’s forehand and the tenacity of Shin’s defence.
The pair had won all four of their matches from the round of 32 to today’s semi-final in straight games. “I think we’re crazy,” Jeon said after the match, laughing when asked by an on-court interviewer how they managed to beat the world number one.
“It was my dream to reach the final once, and I’m so grateful to my partner,” said Jeon, who had finally shaken off the jinx of a bad run at a major tournament. “I watched you play while saying, ‘Hey, wow, oh,'” Shin laughed, adding, “(Last time) we lost because we tried to avoid our opponent because she was good, but this time we won because we just did our thing.”
Meanwhile, Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon will play the much-anticipated final against Fan Zhen-dong and Wang Chu-chin at 9.30pm on the 27th. The pair met for the first time at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Singapore Smash Finals in March, where they lost to Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin. .
Earlier, ‘veteran’ Lee Sang-soo and ‘younger brother’ Cho Dae-sung, who have won three individual World Championships doubles medals (silver, bronze and gold), upset the ‘defending champions’ Sweden in the quarter-finals to reach the semi-finals, but were beaten by the number one and two men’s singles pairing of Fan Zhen-dong and Wang Chu-chin.