[Sports Seoul | Kyungmoo Kim] ‘Table tennis prodigy’ Shin Yubin (19, Korean Air) and Chinese naturalized player Zhang Zhihui (31, Mirae Asset Securities) broke through the Great Wall of China to reach a world championship final.

The women’s doubles quarterfinals at the 2023 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships (Individual) continued on Saturday (local time) at the Durban International Convention Center (DICC) in Durban, South Africa.

World No. 12 Xin Yubin-Jeon Hee secured at least a silver medal with a 3-0 (11-7, 11-9, 11-6) victory over No. 1 Sun Yingxia (23)-Wang Manyu (24) of China to reach the final. The emotions were doubly high because their opponents were the world’s top-ranked team, seeking a third straight world title.

It had been 36 years since Korea had reached the women’s doubles final at the World Championships, last held in 1987 in New Delhi, India. Back then, Hyun Jeong-hwa and Yang Young-ja reached the final and won the gold medal.

Shin also wiped away the pain of her 0-4 loss to world No. 1 Sun Yingxia in the women’s singles round of 16 the day before.

“The things that my sister and I prepared for came out in the match, so it feels great to have a good result,” she said after the match. He continued, “I didn’t expect to win, but I didn’t expect to lose either. I had faith that if I made good content with my sister, there would be good results.”

“I still can’t believe it, I don’t know what’s going on, it’s like a dream,” said Jeon Jeon-hee. It was my dream to reach the final once. I’m so grateful to my partner and thankful to everyone who helped me.”

Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee will play the world No. 7 pair of Chen Meng (29) and Wang Yidi (26) of China in the final. The match will take place at 1:30 a.m. KST on April 28.

Regarding the final, Shin Yubin said, “I just made it to the final with my sister, so I want to have fun like today and have no regrets,” while Jeon Jeon-hee said, “I have Yubin by my side, so I plan to have fun and trust my partner without fear.”

In the men’s doubles, world No. 3 Jang Woo-jin (28, Mirae Asset Securities) and Lim Jong-hoon (26, Korea Exchange) reached their second consecutive World Championships final after winning in Houston in 2021.

The pair defeated Germany’s Dimitri Ovcharov-Patrik Franziska (unranked) 3-2 (11-7, 5-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-5) in the quarterfinals of the day.

However, the world No. 11 pair of Sang Soo Lee (33)-Dae Sung Cho (21-plus Samsung Life) fell 1-3 (11-7, 3-11, 5-11, 12-14) to the top-ranked Chinese pair of Fan Zhendong (26)-Wang Chuqin (23) in the men’s doubles quarterfinals.토토사이트

The final between Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon and Pan Zhen-dong and Wang Chu-chin will be played on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. KST. In their head-to-head record, Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon have one loss.

“We went to the final for the first time in 2021 and won silver, but when we were interviewed in Korea, we said that our goal was gold in doubles, so we were thinking that we should at least come this far,” Zhang said after the match.

“This time, we decided to die, not live, so we didn’t think we had to do our best, but just come out with a result so that we could win gold,” he said.

“I really want to win the gold medal,” said Lim, “and I want to play like a badass and wash away my previous disappointments.