Chinese stars Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin battled it out and stormed back to reach the semi-finals of the ITTF World Cup on Saturday marked by a series of upsets at the Galaxy Stadium in Macau.
While Wang Chuqin staged a thrilling comeback to keep China’s hopes alive in the men’s singles, defeating Slovenia’s Darko Jorgic 4-3 in a thrilling seven-game set, only Sun and Wang Manyu survived the women’s quarter-finals, with Chen Xintong and Wang Yidi eliminated.
Trailing 3-1, world table tennis champion Wang Chuqin rallied to level at 3-3, before taking the lead 13-11 to reach the quarterfinals.
“As an athlete you don’t want to give up easily. I’m glad I survived another day,” Wang said. “I started really well, but maybe I got complacent and lost focus.
“When I called time-out I was in a very difficult moment – I couldn’t play my game and I felt helpless. But there are many ways to approach the match, and slowly I found a solution.”
The men’s world No. 1 will face Hugo Calderano in the semi-finals on Sunday, after the Brazilian defeated France’s Alexis Lebrun 4-0. Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-ju takes on Japan’s Sora Matsushima in another match in the last four.
