(BEIJING, August 21) -- Thursday was the most action-packed day of Table Tennis so far, with 36 top-level matches staged at the Peking University Gymnasium. Four semifinal qualifiers for Women's Singles, and eight quarterfinal qualifiers for Men's Singles duked it out.

　　All three Chinese contenders, Zhang Yining, Guo Yue and Wang Nan, entered the semifinal for Women's Singles after a hard-fought quarterfinal duel with their respective opponents. The remaining semifinal spot went to Li Jiawei of Singapore. Zhang and Li, both Beijing natives, will fight for a final berth in their birth place, while 20-year-old Guo Yue will face the experienced veteran Wang Nan in the semifinals.

　　The Chinese players didn't encounter any significant problems in their road to the quarterfinals in Men's Singles either. No. 1 seed Wang Hao beat Chen Weixing of Austria and Kan Yo of Japan. No. 2 Ma Lin accounted for Bojan Tokic of Slovenia and then Kalinikos Kreanga of Greece. No. 3 Wang Liqin overpowered Lucjan Blaszczyk of Poland and Werner Schlager of Austria.

　　If there was a dark horse in Thursday's Table Tennis competition, it would be Hong Kong's Ko Lai-chak, who beat defending champion Ryu Seung-min of Republic of Korea 4-2 in the third round and then took out Germany's rising star, World No. 14 Dimitrij Ovtcharov, 4-1 in the fourth round. Ko will face Wang Hao in the quarterfinal.

　　Ryu's defeat left Oh Sang-eun as the only surviving ROK player in the competition. Oh kept the ROK's hopes for a medal alive by beating Timo Boll of Germany in the fourth round. Oh will play Ma Lin of China in the quarterfinal.

　　Two veterans, Zoran Primorac of Croatia and Jorgen Persson of Sweden, who have competed at every Olympic Games since Table Tennis made its debut at Seoul 1988, will face each other in the quarterfinal. Primorac defeated Michael Maze of Denmark and Singapore's Yang Zi to qualify, while Persson saw off Cheung Yuk of Hong Kong and then edged past World No. 5 Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus.

　　Tan Ruiwu of Croatia also booked a quarterfinal spot. He first claimed victory over Gao Ning of Singapore and then triumphed over Li Ching of Hong Kong. Tan will confront Wang Liqin of China in the quarterfinal.