Reporting from Tokyo
TOKYO — China continues to be a near-insurmountable obstacle for Singapore’s women’s table tennis team, as the paddlers crashed 0-3 to the sport’s powerhouse nation in the team competition on Tuesday (3 August).
The opening doubles pair of Yu Mengyu and Lin Ye lost 0-3 (5-11, 7-11, 5-11) in 23 minutes to Chen Meng and Wang Manyu, before Feng Tianwei was defeated 0-3 (8-11, 3-11, 8-11) in 26 minutes by Sun Yingsha in the second match.
Lin, who was not involved in last week’s women’s singles competition, managed to take a set off Wang in the third match, but eventually succumbed 1-3 (11-6, 9-11, 6-11, 5-11) in 39 minutes.
The loss meant that there are no medals from the Singapore paddlers for a second straight Olympics, following medal wins at the 2008 Beijing Games (one silver) and the 2012 London Games (two bronzes).
Singapore have never beaten the China team at the Olympics. The only time which the registered a team victory against China was at the 2010 World Team Championships in Moscow.
The paddlers had beaten France 3-0 in the round of 16 on Monday to set up the tie with China.
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