National Games, day 6: Hsieh into semi-finals of women’s épée, Fan Zhendong downs Wang

Kaylin Hsieh Sin-yan took another step towards joining the ranks of Hong Kong’s golden fencers, beating Yu Sihan in the quarter-finals of the women’s épée on Saturday.

The Hongkonger, who went through the group stage unbeaten, had survived a scare in her opening knockout round, needing sudden death to get past Wang Xiaoxue, but was far more comfortable afterwards, brushing aside Fujian’s Zheng Yuanyuan 12-4 to reach the last eight.

And despite a cautious opening, she had little trouble against mainland China’s best épéiste, winning 15-7 to set up a last-four clash with former world champion Lin Sheng, who had earlier knocked out Hsieh’s teammate Moonie Chu Ka-mong.

The battle of table tennis’ big guns delivered the kind of epic encounter everyone expected in Macau on Saturday, with Fan Zhendong beating Wang Chuqin in a six-game semi-final thriller.

Olympic champion Fan and world No 1 Wang had been on a collision course for the last four ever since the draw was made, and the match at Galaxy Arena lived up to its billing.

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