BEIJING, Aug 14: China’s highly-fancied men and women paddlers stormed into the semi-finals of the Olympic team table tennis competition on Thursday, firing stark warnings to their rivals.

The women’s squad of Zhang Yining, Guo Yue and Wang Nan dished out a similar thrashing to the Austrians.

It allowed them to win their group and progress to the business end of the tournament, where they were joined by Singapore.

World champion Guo beat 58th-ranked Li Qiangbing 11-7, 11-7, 9-11, 11-4 before veteran Wang crushed Veronika Heine 12-11, 11-6, 11-1.

Zhang, paired with Guo, sealed victory by demolishing Liu Jia and Li Qiangbing 11-3, 11-3, 11-7.

Singapore, led by Beijing native Li Jiawei, crushed the Netherlands 3-0 with world No 9e Feng Tianwei coming from 2-1 down to defeat Li Jiao 11-9, 10-12, 10-12, 11-5, 11-8.

Li then made light work of Elena Timina before teaming with Wang Yuegu in the doubles to ensure victory.

On the men’s side, the top-ranked trio of Wang Hao, Wang Liqin and Ma Lin eased past Austria 3-0. Earlier, Japan beat Hong Kong to make the semis while South Korea overcame Taiwan and Germany thrashed Canada.—AFP