Fan and Moregard set up men's singles final at table tennis worlds
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E-mail Xinhua, November 30, 2021
Top seed Fan Zhendong of China stormed to the men's singles final after beating compatriot Liang Jingkun convincingly in the semifinals of the 2021 Houston table tennis world championships on Sunday.
Fan showed why he is the world's top player as he defeated Liang 4-1 (11-5, 11-4, 11-9, 8-11, 13-11).
Fan raced to a 3-0 advantage early, winning the first three games 11-5, 11-4, 11-9. Liang managed to take a game off Fan in the fourth game, but his fightback fizzled out as the number one seed clinched the fifth game 13-11 to seal his passage to the final.
Fan will battle against Truls Moregard of Sweden in Monday's final, who shocked German evergreen Timo Boll in the semifinal.
The 19-year-old Swedish has underlined his growing credentials with sterling performances all week, stunning his more illustrious opponents, including Ahmed Saleh, Chuang Chih-Yuan, Patrick Franziska, Lim Jonghoon and Quadri Aruna.
On the women's singles part, Sun Yingsha is set to take on Wang Manyu in an all-Chinese women's singles final after she defeated Wang Yidi 4-1 whilst Wang Manyu showed she could match up to the might of her compatriot and world No. 1 Chen Meng as she rallied from two games down to oust Chen 4-3.
In the men's doubles, the Swedish combination Mattias Falck and Kristian Karlsson, who overcame Fan Zhendong/Wang Chuqin in Saturday's quarterfinal clash, defeated top seeds Lin Gaoyuan/Liang Jingkun in straight games 3-0, dashing China's hopes of a fourth consecutive men's doubles title on the world championships stage.
There were mixed fortunes for China's two pairs in the women's double semifinals.
Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha were indeed too strong for Luxembourg's Sarah De Nutte and Ni Xia Lian to brave as the 2019 champions opened the semifinal in devastating fashion.
De Nutte and Ni's best moments came in the third game and managed to hold a game point opportunity, but Wang/Sun kept their cool to win 3-0.
Later in the day, Chen Meng/Qian Tianyi, another Chinese female pair, lost to Japanese opponents Mima Ito/Hina Hayata 3-2 in a nail-biting semifinal battle.
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