Korean Air women’s table tennis hopeful Shin Yubin (Korean Air) teamed up with senior Jeon Jeon-hee (Mirae Asset Securities) to defeat the ‘European Champions’ in the women’s doubles to secure a bronze medal at the World Table Tennis Championships.
However, they were unable to break through the barrier of world number one Sun Yingxia (CHINA) in the women’s singles.
The 12th-ranked pair of Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee defeated the world No. 3 pair of Sofia Polkanova (AUS) and Bernadette Sötz (ROM) 3-0 (11-9 15-13 11-4) in the Women’s Doubles Quarterfinals on Day 6 of the ITTF World Individual Championships 2023 in Durban, South Africa, on Friday.
With no third or fourth place matches at the event, both pairs that lose in the semifinals will be awarded bronze medals. Shin Yubin-Jeon Hee secured at least a bronze medal with the win.
It is the first time in 12 years that Korean women’s table tennis has won a medal in either the singles or women’s doubles at an individual world championship since the 2011 event, when Kim Kyung-ah and Park Mi-young won bronze.
In mixed doubles, Park Young-sook (retired) won silver with Lee Sang-soo (Samsung Life) at the 2013 Games and Yang Ha-eun (Posto International) won gold with Xu Xin of China at the 2015 Games.
However, men’s and women’s doubles have not been part of the table tennis program since the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, so there is no chance of Shin Yubin-Jeon Hee teaming up to challenge for a medal in Paris next year.
However, they will be able to compete as a doubles team in the team event, as the Olympic women’s team competition consists of four singles and one doubles event. Their next goal is to reach the final, where they will play the winner of the match between world No. 1 Sun Ying-sa and Wang Man-yu (China) and No. 4 Chung Yi-jing and Li Yi-jun (Chinese Taipei) on Saturday. Based on their performance so far, they have a good chance of making it.
Hsin-Yu-Bin and Chun-Hee Chun have played against Sun Ying-Sha and Wang Man-Yu once, but have yet to face Chung Yi-Jing and Li Yujun.
In the next round of 16 women’s singles match, Xin Yubin struggled and lost to Sun Yingxia with a game score of 0-4 (6-11 8-11 8-11 5-11).먹튀검증
Earlier in the day, Xin Yubin had defeated Chinese-French player Jiannan Yuan 4-3 (9-11 11-9 11-9 8-11 9-11 11-5 12-10) in a close match in the round of 32 to reach the round of 16 and make a bold statement against the world’s best player.
However, the self-described “no-lose” Sun Yingxia realized the huge gap in ability and hung his head in shame after being dominated without winning a single game.
The previous day, Shin was paired with Lim Jong-hoon (KOSDAQ) in the mixed doubles quarterfinals, where they lost 0-3 (8-11 5-11 6-11) to Japan’s Hina Hayata and Tomokazu Harimoto (No. 2) without taking a single set. This left just one women’s doubles event remaining.
