Youth Olympic Table Tennis》Overcoming high temperature, strain and falling behind, Lin Jinting/Chen Yanxin mixed doubles opened a red set and advanced to the top 8

The table tennis event of the 2026 Dhaka (Senegal) Youth Olympic Games debuted today. Taiwanese team Lin Jinting/Chen Yixin reversed the Polish combination Zewronek/Rajkovska 3:1 in the top 16 of the Mixed Doubles. The top 8 will face South Korea's Lee Seung-soo/Hsu Yoon-kyung.

In addition to the original men's and women's singles, this year's Youth Olympics table tennis competition has canceled the mixed team competition for the first time and replaced it with mixed doubles. A total of 23 teams competed. Lin Jinting/Chen Yixin, ranked 7th seed, had a bye in the first round. In the top 16, they faced the combination of Zvoronek, who won the U15 men's singles championship at the 2024 European Youth Championship, and Laevska, who had won the European Youth Championship mixed doubles championship. , surrendered at 8:11 in the first game, and got better from the second game, chasing two consecutive games at 11:8 and 11:8. In the fourth game, the Taiwanese team resolved two consecutive game points in a desperate situation at 8:10 and won a thrilling victory at 12:10.

China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which are most likely to win the gold medal in the Youth Olympic Mixed Doubles this year, are all in the upper half of the draw. The top eight teams from Taiwan will face off against the South Korean team. If they can advance to the top four, they will face the winner of the Chinese team Li Hechen/Yao Ruixuan and the Japanese team Kawakami Ryusei/Matsushima Misora.

Huang Shengsheng, coach of the Taiwan team, said that the two young players were a little nervous in the first game. They played a little confused and had no clue, and made many unnecessary mistakes. From the second game, he reminded the two players that the European players' short balls were poorer and they focused on grinding. Don't rush to kill the opponent with one stroke. They should do a good job of control and counter-control first, and then take action when there is an opportunity, and then slowly reverse the situation.

As the current temperature in Dhaka is as high as 35 degrees Celsius, and there is no air-conditioning in the contestants' village, only electric fans, which makes the contestants miserable and difficult to sleep at night. Huang Shengsheng is also worried that the contestants' poor sleep will affect their physical recovery. In addition, Lin Jinting has some strain on his calf, so he chose not to participate in the opening ceremony in the evening, allowing him to have a good rest in the contestants' village.