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Singapore paddlers to meet giants China in Olympics table tennis quarters

The doubles pair of Lin Ye and Yu Mengyu got Singapore up and running in their 3-0 win over France in the table tennis women's team event at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday morning. AP Photo/Vincent Thian

Singapore's reward for advancing into the quarter-finals of the table tennis women's team event at the Tokyo Olympics is a meeting with giants China, which will take place on Tuesday.

This luck of the draw means that the Singaporeans will have to pull off something special if they are to keep alive their hopes of a medal, with China the heavy favourites to go all the way.

On Monday morning, Singapore claimed a 3-0 win over France in the Round of 16 to get their campaign up and running although they were given a tougher test that some perhaps may have expected.

The doubles pair of Yu Mengyu and Lin Ye had no problems seeing off Stephanie Loeuillette and Yuan Jia Nan in the doubles match first up, but top-ranked Singaporean Feng Tianwei then looked like she was on course for a shock defeat to Prithika Pavade before coming from two games down to win 3-2.

It was then left to Yu -- who caused quite a stir last week in her run to the semi-finals of the women's singles -- to secure her country's progress with a 3-1 win over the French.

China had secured their quarter-final berth a day earlier on Sunday as they claimed a 3-0 victory over Austria without dropping a single game in the three matches, losing only a remarkable 34 points out of 133 played.