Ryusei Kawakami and Miku Matsushima won the Youth Olympic Games mixed doubles title for Japan in Dakar on Tuesday, beating a Hong Kong pair 3-1 in the final.
It finished a run that went through China's Li Hechen and Yao Ruixuan in the quarter-finals on Sunday, 11-3, 13-15, 15-13, 11-8, and a pair from Taiwan, beaten 3-1 in Monday's semi-final. Matsushima, 13, is the younger sister of the men's world No 1, Sora Matsushima.
China won every table tennis title on offer at the last Youth Olympics, in Buenos Aires in 2018, when Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha took the boys' and girls' singles and the mixed team event. This time their mixed doubles pair went out before the medal rounds.
Taiwan come from behind for bronze
Lin Chin-Ting and Chen Min-hsin took bronze for Taiwan, beating Thailand's Thitaphat Preechayan and Kulapassr Vijitviriyagul 10-12, 11-9, 11-13, 11-6, 11-9. The Thai pair won the under-15 mixed doubles at last year's World Youth Championships, beating two Chinese pairs on the way.
Lin and Chen saved two game points in the first game before losing it, then let a 10-7 lead shrink to 10-9 in the second before Lin won the point that levelled the match. They lost the third from game point up and trailed 2-1.
They won the fourth 11-6. In the decider they took the first three points, which forced a Thai timeout, and led 10-8. Thailand saved one match point before Preechayan's backhand went out.
It is Taiwan's third Youth Olympic table tennis medal, after Hung Tzu-hsiang's boys' singles silver in Singapore in 2010 and the bronze won by Lin Yun-ju and Su Pei-ling in Buenos Aires.
Taiwan's coach told TSNA the pair had played only two matches together before Dakar and lost both in the first round. Both had played singles earlier in the day, and Lin had been treated for an injury picked up in training. "They really held on through willpower," the coach said.
Singles quarter-finals set
Kawakami is also through to the boys' singles quarter-finals after beating Egypt's Abdelmalk Elsayed 11-4, 11-7, 11-6, 11-3 in 22 minutes. Matsushima has reached the last eight of the girls' singles.
China's girls' singles hopes ended in the last 16, where Yao lost 4-3 to Chen after winning the first game 14-12. Li is China's last player left in the singles. Lin also reached the boys' quarter-finals, coming from behind against an Iranian opponent.
Germany's Koharu Itagaki is into the girls' quarter-finals. Africa's last two players, Algeria's Tania Morice and Egypt's Elsayed, went out on Tuesday, Morice losing 4-1 to Hong Kong's Su Tsz Tung. That means none of the 15 African players in Dakar matched Nigeria's Ojo Onaolapo, who reached the singles quarter-finals at the first Youth Olympics in 2010.
The singles quarter-finals and semi-finals follow, and the table tennis competition in Dakar finishes on Thursday.
