SHANGHAI (Kyodo) Ai Fukuhara and Ai Fujinuma missed out on a podium finish at the Table Tennis World Championships on Tuesday as Olympic champions Wang Nan and Zhang Yining of China ousted the Japanese pair with a straight-sets victory in the women's doubles quarterfinals.
Wang and Zhang, who won the gold at the Athens Olympics last summer, took control of the match from the outset and went on for an 11-3, 11-9, 11-9, 11-3 victory at Shanghai Gymnasium. Earlier in the day, Fukuhara and Fujinuma came back to beat Singapore's Li Jia Wei and Xu Yan 7-11, 13-11, 9-11, 6-11, 11-3, 11-3, 11-7 in a third-round match.
In men's singles, 15-year-old Jun Mizutani lost to former European champion Peter Karlsson 11-5, 11-5, 11-7, 11-9 in the third round, one day after pulling off an upset second-round victory over Taiwan's Chuan Chih-yuan.