China's Lin dashes Fan's title defense hopes at ITTF World Cup
Lin Gaoyuan spoiled his teammate Fan Zhendong's fourth consecutive trophy hope at the ITTF World Cup by beating him 4-2 here on Friday, as six paddlers from Team China moved into the last four.
A total of seven players from Team China had entered the quarterfinals.
In the most highly-anticipated match of the day, Fan, who registered the World Cup champion in 2018, 2019 and 2020, fought back twice to play out a 2-2 tie against Lin.
Fan opened the fifth game with a 7-0 lead, but the world No.2 squandered the huge advantage, only to see Lin erased the deficit to restore a 3-2 lead, before he rode the momentum to seal the win with another 11-7.
"I played widely open today as I have no burden against Fan. I trailed a lot in the fifth game, but I just focused on keeping my pace and narrowing the gap point by point," Lin said.
Fan had called a medical time out during the play, but he disclosed it was nothing serious and Lin did do better on some key points.
"The two opponents at the knockout stage are very tough, I think I performed better than yesterday, but Lin was calmer when dealing with some key points especially in the fifth game, so I congratulate him," Fan noted.
Early on Friday, veteran Ma Long eliminated Shunsuke Togami 4-2, setting up a semifinal showdown with world No.1 Wang Chuqin, who saw off Jang Woo-jin of South Korea 4-1.
On women's part, all three Chinese players Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu had relatively comfortable victories on Friday.
Defending champion Chen and Sun will have a head-to-head showdown, while Wang takes up Miwa Harimoto of Japan.