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CHENGDU, China, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- China has secured the men's and women's doubles titles at the ITTF World Tour China Open on Sunday as both finals will be all-Chinese affair.
Olympic champion pairing Ma Long and Zhang Jike met little resistence from Japanese duo Koki Niwa and Yuya Oshima, winning their semifinal clash 11-9, 11-8, 11-9.
"I haven't partnered with Ma for a while. We meet much tougher opponents today, so we've got to be better," said Zhang.
Another Chinese pair Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin came back from one game down to eliminate Ho Kwan Kit and Wong Chun Ting of Hong Kong, China 6-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-5.
It was the first doubles match for Fan and Xu at the tournament as their quarterfinals opponents, Tiago Apolonia of Portugal and Andrej Gacina of Croatia, withdrew due to injury.
"I made some mistakes in the first game, and could not fit into the rhythm. Then I got back my momentum in the next three games," commented Fan.
"We started a little slow, and had to adjust ourselves to the game," said Xu, adding that the opponents felt more pressure as he and Fan came back to tie at 10 in the second game.
"When we got one game back, we could play to our normal level," he said.
In women's doubles semifinals, Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen eased past Cheng Hsien-Tzu and Chen Szu-Yu of Chinese Taipei 11-3, 12-10, 11-5 to set up a final showdown against teammates Chen Meng and Zhu Yuling, who overcame Lee Yearam and Kim Haeun of South Korea 11-3, 11-9, 7-11, 11-5.
"We did well in our communication on the court," said Ding, the newly crowned Olympic singles champion.
