The Australian men’s and women’s table tennis teams may have been knocked out of Olympic competition for 2016, but remain proud of their efforts in Rio.
The women’s team of Melissa Tapper, Jian Fang Lay and Sally Zhang were defeated 0-3 (0-3, 0-3, 1-3) by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, whose team included Rio women’s singles bronze medallist Kim Song-I.
The result was somewhat disappointing for the team who, together with fellow Australian players Miao Miao and Zhenhua Dederko, beat India 3-1 to win bronze at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Tapper now turns her attention to the Paralympic Games, beginning on September 7, where she will be looking to better her fourth place achieved at London in 2012.
The men’s team of David Powell, Heming Hu and Chris Yan was defeated 0-3 by a slick sixth-seeded Hong Kong. Despite their best efforts, the Aussies couldn’t gain any momentum or find an obvious chink in Hong Kong’s game plan, with the green and gold succumbing to a lead of 10 points in one game.
