Brazilian Teenager Shocks Olympic Silver Medallist at ITTF World Team Classic

Brazil's Caroline Kumahara in action against Japan's Ishikawa Kasumi. Photo by Mr. Xu Zexiong.

Crowned Latin American champion four days earlier, Brazil's 17 year old Caroline KUMAHARA caused the biggest upset on the opening day of play, Thursday 28th March 2013, at the Times Property World Team Classic in Guangzhou.

Listed at no.176 on the current Women's World Rankings, she beat Kasumi ISHIKAWA, named at no.9 and a member of the Japanese silver medal winning team at the London 2012 Olympic Games, in the opening contest of proceedings.

"I tried to play consistently and after winning in San Salvador on Sunday I felt in a good rhythm. I think one of the main reasons for my win was that in the short play and receive of service I did well."

Unfortunately KUMAHARA's heroics were in vain; as the strong Japanese team went on to win the match three-one.

The Brazilian Men's team was inspired by their women's team performance and went within three points of defeating the Germany, bronze medallists at London 2012. Trailing by two matches to nil, the Brazilians kicked into gear as Thiago MONTEIRO and Gustavo TSUBOI beat Patrick BAUM and Patrick FRANZISKA in five games, before Cazuo MATSUMOTO levelled matters by overcoming Patrick FRANZISKA.

It was then left to Bastian STEGER to be the hero for Germany by beating Thiago MONTEIRO in an extremely tight five game match. "We knew it would be tough; the Brazilians have been playing well recently", reflected STEGER. "We made a good start, we won the first two matches; we could have won three-nil, the doubles was close."

Hong Kong's Women's team, seeded fifth, shocked the third seeded Koreans, winning a pulsating match, three games to two. LEE Ho Ching recovered from her loss to YANG Haeun in the second match of the fixture to claim victory over PARK Youngsook in the decisive game and seal a vital victory.

"I was not confident playing YANG Haeun in my first match as I lost to her in Qatar after being up three-nil", said LEE Ho Ching. "I had not played PARK Youngsook before so I just fought for every point and thankfully we got the win."

The Men's and Women's Chinese teams breezed through their two matches to remain the red hot favourites to claim the gold in front of their home crowd on Sunday.

Judging on today's form, Japan will be the team to push the Chinese Men for the title, winning both their matches three-nil. The most impressive team on the Women's side today was Singapore, the London 2012 bronze medallists who will be expected to be battling it out for the medals.

For more information contact: ITTF's Promotion Manager Matt Pound at media@ittf.com.

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