Xu Xin and Zhang Jike of China survived a thrilling match against Masataka Morizono and Yuya Oshima of Japan to progress to the men's doubles semifinals of the Qoros 2015 World Table Tennis Championships at the Suzhou International Exhibition Centre on Thursday.
In the most exciting match of the round, the Japanese players took an early lead, winning the first game 11-9, but the Chinese duo got back into the match, levelling it by winning the second.
In the third it looked like Xu and Zhang began to impose their will on the match, winning it 11-7.
In the fourth game, the teams traded points until Japan took a time-out at 6-5 and with their tactical changes implemented the Morizono and Oshima team went on to win the game and even the match at 2-2.
With the match in the balance at two games all and 9-9 in the fifth, it was the Japanese players who showed battling quality as Oshima ripped two spectacular cross-table forehand winners to get his team within one game of the victory.
In the sixth game, Xu and Zhang built a two-point lead at 8-6 when the Japanese took a time-out, but Morizono/Oshima could not stop the Chinese teams from progressing as China pushed on to force a deciding game.
At 8-8 in the final game, Japan won a long rally and then in the following point Zhang put the ball into the net to give Morizono and Oshima two match points.
Incredibly, the Japanese duo could not convert either, letting Xu and Zhang off the hook and through to the next round.
In a surprisingly close match, the world No. 12 team of Lee Sangsu and Seo Hyundeok of South Korea were pushed all the way by Cazuo Matsumoto and Thiago Monteiro of Brazil.
The South Korean pair finally beat their opponnets in seven games and set up a semifinal clash against Xu/Zhang.
The other semifinal will see Japanese Kenta Matsudaira and Koki Niwa against Chinese Fan Zhendong and Zhou Yu.
