(Olympics) S. Korea falls to China in women’s table tennis, heads to bronze medal match

South Korea lost to China in the semifinals of the women's table tennis team event at the Paris Olympics on Thursday, going down without much of a fight against the world No. 1 unit. Shin Yu-bin, Jeon Ji-hee and Lee Eun-hye went down 3-0 against Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng and Wang Manyu after one doubles and two singles matches at South Paris Arena 4 in Paris. South Korea will now try to salvage a bronze medal in the third-place contest Saturday, against the loser of the other semifinal match between Germany and Japan. Sun, Chen and Wang are 1-2-3 in the women's singles world rankings, and they were too much for the South Koreans to handle. In the opening doubles match, Shin and Jeon lost to Chen and Wang 3-1 (11-4, 11-5, 9-11, 11-9). After dropping the first two games, the South Koreans built a 7-2 lead in the third game, only to be caught at 9-9. But Shin and Jeon grabbed the final two points to make it a 2-1 match. They rallied from an 8-2 deficit to draw even at 9-9 in the fourth game, but then conceded the next two points to allow the Chinese duo to close out the match. In the next singles match, Sun humbled Lee Eun-hye in a 3-0 (11-5, 11-1, 11-3) victory, with the South Korean wearing an exasperated look. Wang then beat Jeon 3-0 (11-3, 11-7, 11-3) to send South Korea to the bronze medal match. Wang jumped out to an 8-0 lead in the third game in a blink and closed out the match without breaking a sweat. Source : Yonhap News Agency