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Dark Horse Hirano shocks Chinese paddler Zhu out of Asian champs (updated)

Xinhua, April 15, 2017 Adjust font size:

Japanese teenager Miu Hirano continued her giant-killing run at the 2017 Asian table tennis championships, shocking out world No. 2 Zhu Yuling 3-0 to reach women's singles final here on Friday.

Trailing 6-3, 8-4 in the second set after taking the first, Hirano played a 7-1 run with her powerful serves and forehand, before improving a 10-8 lead in the third set and wrapping up the match 11-7, 11-9, 11-8.

"We do need to take a thorough study on her serve," commented Zhu after losing the semi. "I lost at least six points on it."

Zhu's coach Li Sun, who had guided Wang Nan, Zhang Yining and Li Xiaoxia to win Grand Slam of Olympic Games, world championships and World Cup, however, thought the main problem was on Zhu herself.

"She didn't play her best table tennis, for sure," said Li. "But I think Zhu lost because she's too eager to win. In that case, Hirano was the better player today on court."

"We have to admit that the Japanese women paddlers made rapid progress recently and they do know the right tactics and can successfully carry those out," he added.

The world No. 11 Hirano, who turned 17 years old Thursday, had produced the arguably biggest upset in the quarterfinals, beating Olympic and world champion Ding Ning 3-2, a best ever birthday gift to herself.

Comparing to her Chinese opponents who she defeated for the first time, Hirano was determined and fearless.

After two leading players suffering early exit on home soil, head coach Kong Linghui said the Chinese women's team should be alerted.

"It's a big blow to our players, especially when you noticed how young the Japanese player is," said Kong, himself a Grand Slam winner in late 1990s.

Knowing about Hirano's long term target of winning both the women's singles and team titles at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Kong thought it's not a bad thing to have a strong and determined competitor.

"It's good to be young and aggressive, in my opinion," he said.

"In three and a half years, the ultimate test of Olympic Games will come on the Japanese players' home soil, that's why we want our players to go all out for every meeting with Japan during this period," he added. Endit