Reigning Olympic champion and number three seed Li Xiaoxia yesterday upset her compatriot the reigning world champion and number one seed Ding Ning in the semi-final of the women’s singles competition at the Liebherr World table tennis championships in Paris, France.
Xiaoxia, who also defeated Ning at the London Olympic Games last year won 11-8, 1-11, 11-4, 11-13, 6-11, 8-11 while in the other semi final Liu Shiwen defeated Yuling Zhu 8-11, 11-9, 9-11, 5-11, 8-11.
The women’s final will be played today.
In the men’s singles competition, the top two seeds Xu Xin and Ma Long of China as expected booked their places in the quarter-finals of the men’s singles of the Liebherr Worlds table tennis championships in Paris, France yesterday.
Top seed Xin defeated Portugal’s Marcos Freitas 4-0 while Long got the better of Japan’s Koki Niwa by a 4-2 margin.
Germany’s Timo Boll got past Japan’s Seiya Kishikawa 4-0 and China’s An Yang defeated Taipei’s C. Chuang 4-0.
The other quarter-finalists are Wang Hao who defeated Ning Gao 4-1. Zhang Jike who got the better of Austraia’s Robert Gardos 4-1 Germany’s Patrick Baum who defeated fellow German Dimitri Ovtcharov 4-1 and Japan’s Kenta Matsudira who upset Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus 4-3.
