China ready to repeat sweep of Olympic table tennis golds

China’s Ma Long competes during the men’s table tennis team semifinal against South Korea at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 15, 2016.

Zhou kept Singapore’s hopes alive on Sunday, coming good in a must-win match against South Korea’s world No. 18 Suh Hyo Wun.

China’s Zhang Jike competes during the men’s table tennis team semifinal against South Korea at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 15, 2016.

Team China continued their single-minded march to defend Olympic gold with a 3-0 dismantling of North Korea Saturday morning.

They would punch their ticket in the doubles match.

“I’ll ask our medical staff to do some massage for my waist and fingers crossed for the best result”.

Singapore will now face Japan in the bronze medal play-off on Tuesday, 10pm, Singapore time.

In the other men’s team semifinal played Monday afternoon, Jorg Rosskopf’s German team lost 3-1 to Japan to again miss the final following London’s dissapointment. The Chinese team took care of business in quick order, winning 11-4, 11-1, 11-9 to take the penultimate step to gold.

On women’s part, the Chinese women’s team claimed another 3-0 victory earlier Monday morning over former runners-up Singapore to set up a clash on Tuesday with Germany, the debutants to an Olympic table tennis final.

She was followed up by the woman who bested her in the gold medal match, Ding Ning.

The Chinese team, made up of individual gold and silver medallists Ding Ning and Li Xiaoxia plus world number one Liu Shiwen, beat Singapore’s Feng Tianwei, Zhou Yihan and Yu Mengyu 3-0 in Monday’s semi-final.