China's top 2 seeds Sun and Wang eliminated at WTT US Smash

Chinese No. 1 seed Sun Yingsha was knocked out of the women's singles event at the World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the round of 16 on Thursday by her compatriot Chen Yi 11-9, 7-11, 11-5, 11-9.

Though Chen is not a seeded player, she began the first game with an early 4-1 lead. She continued to play in a solid way and exploited the opponent's mistakes at the end of the game to claim it 11-9.

Sun, as a two-time Olympic singles silver medalist, bounced back in the second game with a 11-7 win to tie the match. However, Chen enhanced her aggression in the third game and kept scoring on Sun's mistakes before taking it 11-5. The fourth game was much closer. The two exchanged 17 shots during a rally before Chen won it to level the score 7-7. In the end, she sealed the deal 11-9.

In the other half of the women's singles, second-seeded Wang Manyu of China was upset by Zhu Yuling of China's Macao 11-8, 11-6, 8-11, 11-5.

"Yesterday before the match I recalled how many matches I have played since I came back and today's match marks the 38th one," Zhu said. "How time flies and it is out of my expectation that I could go straight forward to fully show myself on the WTT stage. I didn't expect I could get such a good result today either."

Meanwhile, in the doubles quarterfinals, two Chinese pairs were able to secure their spots in the semifinals. The women's top seeds Wang Yidi and Kuai Man beat Hina Hayata and Mima Ito of Japan in five games, coming from behind twice to win the match 3-2.

On the men's side, Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun beat compatriots Lin shidong and Huang Youzheng 3-1 to advance to the last four, where they will face French brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun.