China, Germany breeze into table tennis last four

Top seeds China and hosts Germany booked their places in Saturday's semi-finals of the men's world team table tennis championships by recording commanding last eight victories. China's Zhang Jike, Ma Lin and Ma Long showed Austria no mercy in Friday's quarter-final as the defending champions romped to a 3-0 victory while Germany also blasted past Sweden with a clean-sweep. For a place in Sunday's final, the Germans will now play Japan, who beat Singapore 3-1 in their quarter-final, while China take on South Korea, who beat Taiwan 3-1 in the last eight. "We are happy to have a 3-0 win, but it will be tense against Japan," said Germany's Timo Boll. During the team semi-finals at the Beijing Olympics, Germany dug deep to beat the Japanese 3-2 before losing the final to China 3-0 and Boll said he had strong memories of the semi-final four years ago. "That was the most emotional moment in my career," he said. "Japan are another calibre. Jun Mitsutani is very strong, he has extremely good serves. "They have a good team spirit and are really hard to beat." In the women's competition, China romped into the last four with a clinical 3-0 win over Poland, while Hong Kong also blitzed the Netherlands by the same margin and will meet the Chinese in Saturday's semi-finals An astounding recovery by Kim Kyung Ah clinched victory for South Korea against Japan as she sealed a 3-2 win over Kasumi Ishikawa with a battling display. "I am very happy and tired," said Kim Kyung Ah, whose team will now meet defending champions Singapore in Saturday's other semi-final after they knocked the Germans out with a 3-2 victory. "It was a very tough match but when we won the third game, we knew we can make it." The world championships doubles as an Olympic qualifier with London places up for grabs for the highest-ranked nation from each of the six continents.