The South Korean women’s table tennis team has vowed to play attacking table tennis against top-ranked China in the team final of the Asian Table Tennis Championships.메이저사이트
Korea, ranked No. 5 in the world, swept past No. 6 Hong Kong 3-0 in the women’s team quarterfinals of the 2023 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF)-Asian Table Tennis Union (ATTU) Pyeongchang Asian Championships at the Pyeongchang Dome in Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon Province, on Friday to advance to the final.
The final will be played at 7 p.m. tonight at the same venue. They will face China, who advanced with a 3-0 victory over Japan. China is ranked No. 1 in the world as a team. China is the top-ranked team in women’s singles, with world No. 1 Sun Yingxia and No. 2 Chen Meng.
Head coach Oh Kwang-heon said that the women’s team was prepared for the match against China. “We have been preparing for the China match since before the Hong Kong match,” Oh told the Korea Table Tennis Association after the match, adding, “It will not be an easy match against the world’s strongest team, but we will not back down.”
Oh said he hoped to put pressure on China through offense. “The key point to watch is the offense,” he said, adding, “We are asking the players to be aggressive because they cannot win by playing defensively.”
South Korea’s final opponent, China, defeated Japan in the quarterfinals. The Japanese were the defending champions but were no match for China. Sun Yingxia, Chen Meng and Chen Xingtong (World No. 4) defeated Hina Hayata (World No. 7), Miu Hirano (World No. 14) and Mima Ito (World No. 8) in straight sets.
If South Korea pulls off the upset to beat China in the final, they will win their first title in 33 years. The only time South Korean women’s table tennis won the team title at the Asian Championships was during Hyun Jung-hwa’s career. The country won back-to-back titles in 1988 and 1990.
“We are about to embark on an impossible challenge against the strongest team in the world,” said the Korea Table Tennis Association, “and we need the support of Korean fans beyond the cheers of Chinese fans.”