Women’s doubles table tennis team makes semifinals

Canada’s top women’s table tennis doubles team has made the semifinals and will play for medals on Saturday.

Mo Zhang (Vancouver, B.C.) and Anqi Luo (Mississauga, Ont.) started their day Friday with a third round match against Northern Ireland, winning fairly easily 3-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-3).

Following that they played Malaysia in the quarter-final, winning a long nerve-wracking match 4-3 (11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 11-13, 11-6).

“The match points were really tight and it was very nerve wracking since we were leading 2-0 and then they got back two sets,” said Luo. “So the last game we both played pretty conservative At the end I played more offensive, so we get a few important points near the end. It was a mental game for both of us, since we needed to force ourselves to put more power in our forearm to control the ball.”

The women play their semifinal on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. vs. Australia. If they win that, the gold medal final is at 4:50 p.m.; if they lose, they will play for bronze at 4:00 p.m.