South Korea and Japan will face strong rivals on day two of the table tennis preliminaries at the Beijing Olympics on Thursday.

The second-seeded South Korean men's team, which whitewashed Sweden 3-0 on Wednesday, is expected to meet strong resistance from Chinese Taipei, which boasts 10th-ranked Chuan Chih-Yuan and 23rd-ranked Chiang Peng-Lung.

Having been drawn into Group D, Japan has to show down against the fourth-seeded Hong Kong of China for the only berth in the group to advance to the semifinals.

The 2002, 2005 World Cup champion Timo Boll from Germany, said that he hopes the German team could keep its winning momentum when it plays Canada Thursday.

"Everybody expects an easy win of us but we know there is no easy match in the Olympics. Everybody is hard and motivated, so we have to be very careful," said Boll.

"It will be a long tournament and I hope the German team would go till the end," he added. The German men's squad trashed Croatia 3-0 on their first outing Wednesday.

Also on Thursday, the Chinese men will clash with Australia.

On the women's part, the fourth-seed South Korea will take on Japan who will fight hammer and tongs to end the country's medal drought at the Olympic Games.

But the trio of Dang Ye Seo, Kim Kyung Ah and Moon Hyun Jung would not allow the Japanese dream to come true.

The Chinese women will confront Austria after they whitewashed Croatia and the Dominican Republic 3-0 on Wednesday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2008)