Indian city Bhubaneswar hosted the 28th Asian Table Tennis Championships, bringing together some of the strongest table tennis collectives in the World, including the reigning Olympic and World champions – Team China.
The road to the gold medals was quite a rocky one. The trio that had all the responsibilities on their shoulders, Wang Chuqin, Liang Jingkun, and Lin Shidong, faced a tough challenge in the semi-final against the Japanese team. As it sometimes happens, the true final was played in an earlier round.
Lin Shidong had an unfortunate slip in the 1/4 final round, when he lost to the rising Iranian talent, Benyamin Faraji. It took five sets for the young Iranian to beat the vice-leader of the World Ranking. His teammates, however, did not face much resistance from the other opponents, and Shidong himself had a chance to seal the deal with a 3-0 win against Noshad Alamiyan.
The semi-final against the Japanese team that took out the Koreans (3-1), turned out to be the pinnacle of the tournament. Five long-fought games, and each one was an intense, five-set showdown. The Japanese turned out to be a worthy opponent, having all their leading players in the line-up.
Tomokazu Harimoto and Sora Matsushima made the Japanese fans feel highly hopeful after wins over Liang Jingkun and Wang Chuqin in the first two games. Lin Shidong had all eyes on him in the match-up against Hiroto Shinozuka. He had to secure a victory to keep Team China afloat. His opponent put up some solid resistance, but Lin Shidong was able to take the win.
Liang Jingkun and Wang Chuqin then had to make a comeback and bring back the missing, crucial points on the way to the final. Wang Chuqin took on Harimoto, and after a long-fought 3-2 victory, Liang Jingkun stepped in against Matsushima. The Japanese had a great start to the game, taking a 2-0 lead. But as it often has happened, Liang Jingkun was able to make an amazing comeback and get that decisive 3-2 win, leading Team China into the final.
A pity for the neutral fans, the final turned out to be very one-sided, since Hong Kong’s players could not do much against the Team China trio. 3-0 win sealed the deal and added another gold medal to the great collection of China’s achievements. Tournament draws can sometimes be unfair, since the Japanese team definitely was worthy of the final, but they had to be satisfied with the bronze medals. An opposite situation was for Hong Kong. They were lucky that Chinese Taipei played this tournament without their leader, Lin Yun-ju.
2025 ASIAN TEAM TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS
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