Korea Republic and Japan will Play for the Bronze Medal

The 2nd playoff round, which leads the teams towards the bronze medal, took place this morning. There were the teams of Japan and Korea Republic that went out victorious of their duels with Hong Kong China and the USA respectively.

Japanese Emotions
They cried a lot – tears of joy. The Japanese women couldn’t hide their emotions. They realised an exploit by beating Hong Kong China.

“We were extremely emotional, because we have never expected that we could beat Hong Kong China”, explained FUKUHARA Ai, the Japanese flag bearer last week. “I felt that my team-mates were free of stress and burden, and their performances were excellent. We are exhilarated that we beat Hong Kong China, a strong opponent.”

The Japanese coach, KONDO Kinji considered that the double had been decisive to overcome Hong Kong China. ”I put FUKUHARA and HIRANO in the doubles because I knew that it would be the critical match. It proved to be the right decision. As a doubles pair, FUKUHARA and HIRANO beat ZHANG Yining and WANG Nan (CHN) in the Austrian open last year.”

The final victory of 3-2 offers to the Japanese now the possibility to compete for the bronze medal against Korea Republic. After the defeat 3-0 against the Koreans during the first round, KONDO Kinji (JPN) has now to find the keys for revenge.

”I will have to go back to the Athletes’ Village and think long and hard over our strategy. I actually think it will be an easy match for us because our players are in very good spirits.”


Korea Republic without Trembling
Beaten yesterday evening by Singapore after an intense fight (4 hours and 20 minutes), the Koreans kept up the possibility to play for the bronze medal.

”We played for such a long time yesterday and I didn’t predict that to happen, so today against the USA we made sure we were well prepared”, said KIM Kyung Ah, the Korean chopper. “We focused very hard on our doubles match because it is the most important but when we were down 2-1 we felt a lot of pressure. I was in a good state during my singles match and I played strongly in the doubles, but I was also a little lucky.”

The players of coach HYUN Jung Hwa (KOR) perfectly well negotiated their contest against the Americans. On what they focused on leading up to the match, HYUN said: “They have very strong players so we prepared a lot, especially in the doubles.” A doubles match that allowed the Koreans to overcome the US team 3-0. The Americans, however, can be satisfied with their overall performance in Beijing.