The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic GamesAugust 8-24 2008
MAGDEBURG, Oct.5 (Xinhua) -- The contest between Hong Kong women 's team and Belarus on Friday turned out to be the longest match of the qualifying round matches of Magdeburg Table Tennis World Team Cup on Friday, lasting about four hours.
The two teams fought each other with full five matches with Hong Kong managing a 3-2 narrow victory.
The only one duel that did not go the full five games distance was the last, which was decided in four games.
The contest started with first blood going to Belarus as Viktoria Pavlovich beat Tie Yana.
Hong Kong responded, with Zhang Rui defeating Veronika Pavlovich to level the score in the duel.
Victory for Tatiana Kostromina and Viktoria Pavlovich over Lau Sui Fei and Tie Yana in the doubles took Belarus into a 2-1 lead.
Again Hong Kong recovered with Zhang Rui fighting back from a two games to one deficit to beat Tatiana Kostromina, leaving Lau Sui Fei and Veronika Pavlovich with the task of determining the outcome.
The verdict went in four games to Lau Sui Fei.
"After losing to Korea this morning I decided to make a change in the team," said Hong Kong head coach Li Huifen
The change made by Li Huifen was replacing Lin Ling with Lau Sui Fei.
While losing to Korea earlier Friday, Hong Kong had to defeat Austria on Saturday to book a berth in the semi-finals.
