China sweeps six spots in women's quarters at World Table Tennis Championships

Din Ning (L) and Li Xiaoxia (R)

Suzhou (China), May 1 (IANS)

Olympic and defending World Champion Li Xiaoxia led China's sweep of six berths at the women's singles quarterfinals here on Friday.

Chinese women's dominance at the World Table Tennis Championships was solid, only leaving two spots to Singapore's Feng Tianwei and Japan's Mima Ito, who both didn't meet Chinese players, reports Xinhua.

World No.1 Ding Ning crushed Germany's Irene Ivancan 11-4, 11-7, 11-9, 11-8 while Li Xiaoxi, No.3, beat Hong Kong's Jiang Huajun, 11-6, 11-3, 11-6, 12-10. Ding will confront teammate Wu Yang, who chopped down Cheng I-Ching from Chinese Taipei 11-9, 9-11, 11-4, 11-3, 11-1.

No.2 Liu Shiwen made short work of South Korea's Yang Hae-un, advancing with a 11-5, 11-4, 11-6, 11-3 win. Yang has one more match to play as she reached the mixed doubles final, partnering Chinese Xu Xin.

Yang-Xu are the only trans-national pair as other duos exited early.

The combination of Germany's Timo Boll and China's Ma Long lost their men's doubles second round match to China's Zhang Jike and Xu Xin.

Earlier, No.4 Feng Tianwei won an all-Singaporean match to reach the quarterfinals. Feng, who led Singapore to the world team title in 2010 and runners-up to China in 2012, beat 16th-ranked Yu Mengyu 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 11-9.

The 29-year-old will take on China's Mu Zi, who defeated Sweden's Matilda Ekholm 12-10, 13-11, 11-5, 11-3.

Mima Ito from Japan downed Teyana Bilenko of Ukraine 11-5, 11-8, 10-12, 11-9, 12-10 while China's World No.6 Zhu Yuling subdued 27th-ranked Li Jie from the Netherlands, 11-5, 11-3, 11-6, 11-2.