The table tennis group Lim Jong-hoon (28, Korea Exchange) and Shin Yu-bin (21, Korean Air) advanced to the semifinals as first place in the group at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Hong Kong Finals 2025, which determines the strongest table tennis player.
‘World No. 2’ Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin won a complete victory 3-0 (11-9, 11-7, 11-9) in the third match of the mixed doubles group 2 match against the ‘world No. 7’ Alvaro Robles and Maria Xiao (Spain) in Hong Kong on the 12th.
Following the ‘world’s 6th ranked’ Hugo Calderano and Bruno Takahashi (Brazil) and the ‘world’s 4th ranked’ Sora Matsushima and Harimoto Miwa (Japan), they completely dominated the Spanish group 3-0 and advanced to the semifinals without a loss.
Jong-Hoon Lim and Yu-Bin Shin will clash for second place in Group 1 and advance to the finals. The ‘World No. 1’ Lin Shidong-Kwai Man (China) pair or the ‘World No. 3’ Wang Chuqin-Sun Yingsha (China) pair is expected to be the opponents of Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin.
The WTT Finals is a competition in which only those with the highest ranking points participate based on Grand Smash, Champions, and Contender Series performance, and is a king-of-the-match competition that concludes a season.
Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin have won three times in the WTT series this season and finished second in the US and European Smash, and are determined to decorate the finale by winning this tournament.
On this day, the difference in skill was the most overwhelming. The game ended in just 21 minutes. With the score tied at 1-1 in the first game, they quickly widened the gap by scoring 7 consecutive points and allowed the team to trail by one point at 10-9, but they calmly won a point later and breathed a sigh of relief.
They were chased in game 2, but eventually maintained their lead, and in game 3, they turned the tide and achieved victory.
In the women’s singles, world number 18 Joo Chun-hee (23, Samsung Life Insurance), who defeated Shin Yu-bin in the round of 16, lost 1-4 (7-11, 8-11, 11-9, 5-11, 4-11) to world number 2 Wang Man-yu (China) in the quarterfinals, failing to advance to the semifinals.
