’36 years after Yang Young-ja and Hyun Jung-hwa’ Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee missed gold but made history
Korean women’s table tennis team newcomers Shin Yoo-bin (19, Korean Air) and Jeon Jeon-hee (31, Mirae Asset Securities) made history by reaching the women’s doubles final at the World Championships for the first time in 36 years, but fell just short of gold.메이저사이트
Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee suffered a 0-3 (8-11 7-11 10-12) defeat to China’s Wang Yidi and Chen Meng in the women’s doubles final at the 2023 International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Individual World Championships in Durban, South Africa, on Monday (28 July). In the quarter-finals, the pair upset women’s doubles world number one pair Sun Yingxia-Wang Manyu, but were unable to cross the Great Wall twice in a row.
Shin Yubin-Jeon Hee did, however, make Korean women’s table tennis history at the World Championships. They reached the women’s doubles final at the World Championships 36 years after Yang Young-ja and Hyun Jung-hwa at the 1987 New Delhi Games. The pair won the tournament and went on to win gold at the Seoul Olympics the following year, cementing their status as the strongest doubles team of all time.
Shin Yoo-bin and Jeon Jeon-hee became the first Korean women’s singles and doubles team to win a World Championship silver medal or better in 30 years. The previous best result for a Korean athlete in women’s singles and doubles was Hyun Jung-hwa’s gold medal in Gothenburg in 1993.
The men’s doubles silver and bronze medals were the team’s best results in 20 years. Earlier, Jang Woo-jin (Mirae Asset Securities) and Lim Jong-hoon (Korea Exchange) won silver and Lee Sang-soo and Cho Dae-sung (Samsung Life Insurance) won bronze. The last time Korea won more than three medals at the event was in Paris in 2003 (silver in the men’s singles and bronze in the men’s and women’s doubles).
Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee, ranked 12th in the world in women’s doubles, dropped the first two sets against seventh-ranked Chen Meng and Wang Yidi. They struggled with the sharp cuts of their opponents, who were once the strongest women’s team in the world.
Despite being pushed to the brink, Shin Yubin and Jeon Jeon-hee fought back to win the deuce. However, they had to settle for the runners-up spot as their opponents’ shots hit the edge and they lost the match in three sets.
At the medal ceremony, Jeon Jeon-hee and Shin Yubin beamed as they took to the podium to collect their silver medals. Yoo Seung-min, the 2004 Athens Olympic men’s singles gold medallist, was on hand to present the award.
“I’m disappointed with the result, but I’m happy that I got the medal I wanted,” said Shin Yubin, who vowed to “go to the Asian Games with my sister (Jeon Jeon-hee) again, but this time I will analyse the Chinese players more and work hard with my sister to achieve better results.” “It feels like a dream to be in the final,” smiled the Chinese naturalised athlete, “and even though I had some technical shortcomings, I did well for the effort I put in.