SINGAPORE, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese paddlers Xu Xin and Lin Gaoyuan reached the men's singles semifinals, while Olympic champion Ding Ning lost an all-Chinese quarterfinal to Sun Yingsha at the T2 Diamond Singapore here on Saturday.
Xu moved past South Korea's Jeoung Young-sik 11-7, 11-6, 7-11, 11-7, 5-2. Semifinal opponent of the top seed will be Japanese teenager Tomokazu Harimoto, who beat teammate Koki Niwa after six games.
Lin continued his in-form play at the tournament, as he came from one game behind to dispatch Japan's Jun Mizutani 3-11, 11-7, 11-10, 11-4, 5-2. Awaiting Lin in the semifinals will be Lin Yun-Ju of Chinese Taipei.
In women's quarterfinals, Ding fell to Sun 11-8, 11-6, 11-10, 9-11, 5-3.
The other quarterfinal in the top half was also played between two Chinese paddlers. Wang Manyu triumphed the duel over Chen Xingtong 7-11, 11-7, 6-11, 5-1, 5-0, 5-1. Sun and Wang will contend for one final spot on Sunday.
In the bottom half, Mima Ito came out as the winner against fellow Japanese Hitomi Sato in straight games.
South Korea's Jeon Ji-hee upset world No. 1 Chen Meng from China through a seven-game thriller 11-10, 11-10, 4-11, 3-11, 5-2, 4-5, 5-4, setting up the semifinal clash with Ito.
T2 Diamond 2019 features 32 of the world's best men's and women's players competing across three tournaments for a combined prize money of 1.5 million U.S. dollars and bonus ITTF World Ranking points as they battle their way to 2020 Tokyo Olympic qualification.
The tournament adopts a best-of-seven format with all games played to 11 points. If no player has won four games after 24 minutes of play, the match will enter a "FAST5" game played to five points.
