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Australia has recorded its first win in the Para-table tennis competition at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, with Lina Lei and Qian Yang beating China’s Meng Liu and Jingdian Mao, 3-0 to advance to the semifinal.
Lei and Yang, the second seeds in their classification (WD20), were given the bye in the round of 16 and are Australia’s last remaining doubles pair, after seven teams were eliminated on Day 1.
They will now face Brazilians Bruna Alexandre and Danielle Rauen tomorrow for a spot in the gold medal match, after the South Americans had a comfortable 3-0 win over Ukraine.
The Australians looked comfortable throughout the match, even as their Chinese opponents staged a fightback.
“Qian and I are very familiar with each other, so we know what we want to get from the games,” Lei said.
“We just tried to do our best and follow our strategy that we talked about, and yeah, we did it.”
Lei (class 9) and Yang (class 10) are currently top of the world table tennis rankings and defending Paralympic gold medallists in their respective singles classification.
RESULTS
Women’s Doubles (WD20) QF: AUS LEI Lina / YANG Qian def CHN LIU Meng / MAO Jingdian 11-8, 13-11, 11-4.
Image credit: ITTF World
By: Laurie Lawira, Paralympics Australia
Published: 30 August 2024
