Singapore's Li Jiawei and Sun Beibei, the top seeds in the women's doubles event at the 2008 ITTF table tennis Pro Tour Grand Finals in Macao, booked their place in the gold medal contest following a semifinal win over the Romania duo of Daniela Dodean and Elizabeta Samara here on Friday.
However, for the second seeds it was defeat. Hong Kong's Jiang Huajun and Tie Yana suffered at the hands of South Koreans Kim Kyung-Ah and Park Mi-Young.
Li Jiawei/Sun Beibei recorded a six games victory against Romanians with a result of 11-9, 12-14, 7-11, 11-7, 11-7 and 11-5. Li and Sun have been partners on the ITTF Pro Tour throughout the year and they totally controlled the game against the left and right handed European combination.
In the other semifinal of women's doubles, Kim Kyung-Ah/Park Mi-Young won 11-9, 11-9, 8-11, 5-11, 13-15, 11-9, 15-13.
South Korean's stone defense caused much trouble to the Hong Kong pair. After tied at 3-3, Jiang Huajun made errors when the scores were level at 12-all and 13-all in the seventh set, while 13-14 it was Tie Yana's forehand error that went astray when trying to finish the point.
In the men's doubles, the both top two seed won their matches as Gao Ning/Yang Zi from Singapore defeated Russian pair Alexei Liventsov/Igor Rubtsov, 5-11, 11-8, 11-9, 6-11, 11-9 and 11-8, while Chuang Chih-Yuan/Wu Chih-Chi of Chinese Taipei eliminated French Emmanuel Lebesson/Adrien Mattenet, 8-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-8 and 11-7.
(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2008)
