Taiwan on Thursday put up a fight against defending champions China in the men’s team final at the Asian Table Tennis Championships, but fell short 3-1 to win silver in the event for a third consecutive time.
Taiwan reached the men’s team final in the previous two Asian Championships in 2021 and last year, but lost to South Korea and China respectively.
Led by 23-year-old Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s men were hoping to come away with gold this year and reached the final after edging past Hong Kong and shutting out India, despite the absence of veteran paddler Chuang Chih-yuan.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
However, China have the top five men’s singles players in the world, according to the International Table Tennis Federation’s latest rankings, and beating them was always going to be a long shot.
In the best-of-five final in Astana, Kazakhstan, Taiwan opened with 19-year-old Kao Cheng-ju against China’s top-ranked player Wang Chuqin.
Kao made it close in the first game, but could not deal with the pressure to his backhand side as the match went on and he lost to Wang 11-9, 11-5, 11-6.
It was then up to Lin to pull Taiwan back against 19-year-old Lin Shidong, who won the men’s singles title at the China Grand Smash, improving his ranking to world No. 3.
The Taiwanese lost the first two games, won the the third, and was locked in a tight battle in the fourth, but could not convert at key moments and ended up losing 11-7, 11-7, 8-11, 12-10.
On the brink of elimination from the final, Taiwan sent world No. 70 Huang Yan-cheng to play the third match against world No. 5 Liang Jingkun.
Showing great determination, Huang took the favored Liang to five games.
Despite failing to convert three match points, Huang held his nerve and won the match 7-11, 11-7, 1-11, 11-9, 13-11 to secure Taiwan’s first point.
Lin Yun-ju again had a chance to even up the score for Taiwan against China’s Wang and started out strongly, winning the first two games, but once he lost the third game he seemed to rush his play, and Wang ended up winning 1-11, 8-11, 11-8, 12-10, 11-4, sealing Taiwan’s fate.
It was the fifth time Taiwan won silver in the men’s team event at the Asian Championships, having achieved the feat previously in 2000, 2003, 2021 and last year.
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