Sun Yingsha Made Matsushima 'Too Uncomfortable to Play': Wang and Sun Sweep Japan 3–0 into the Asian Games Semis

Friday morning in Nagoya brought the result Chinese table tennis needed after Wednesday's shock. Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, the defending mixed-doubles champions, beat Japan's Matsushima Sora and Harimoto Miwa 3–0 — 12-10, 13-11, 11-8 — to reach the Asian Games semi-finals, as Xinhua reported from the hall. The night before, Japan's men had ended China's 36-year reign in the team event, and no result in this sport lands harder in China than a loss to Japan with a title attached.

The phrase that captured the match trended within minutes: "Sun Yingsha made Matsushima too uncomfortable to play" (孙颖莎把松岛辉空打的太难受了). It was not fan bravado but a line borrowed from the broadcast booth. Cheng Jingqi, a former professional turned commentator, explained on Migu's stream that the match turned on Sun's role as the female half of the pair: her serve-receive and her control of the table stripped Matsushima of the first attack, she said — "on the key points, with Sun Yingsha's control she can completely shut down Matsushima's offence" (the booth's breakdown). Fans reached for the idiom "striking the snake seven inches from the head" (打蛇打七寸) — going for the vital spot — and one called her "a young grandmaster who plays with her brain" (one fan's account of the key points). The margins were the story: a first game edged 12-10, a second from 8-10 back to 13-11, a third swung from 6-7 to match point at 10-8, with almost every critical ball played by Sun.

The couple at the centre of it are the sport's most-watched pairing, the one Chinese fans call "Sha-Tou" (莎头) — Sun's "Sha" joined to Wang's childhood nickname "Big Head" — and their quarter-final against a Japanese pair built from two teenagers was treated as an event of state interest even by the standards of this fandom. The Paper carried the score within minutes (its live report); by mid-morning the match sat high on Baidu's trending board.

For Japan the morning was a wipe-out twice over. The phrase "Japan's mixed doubles annihilated" (日本混双项目全军覆没) trended as the second Japanese pairing also went out, and Harimoto Miwa's defeat was her second loss to a Chinese opponent inside twenty-four hours, after she had pushed Wang Manyu to five games in Wednesday's women's team final before China took that title 3–0. China's other mixed pair, Lin Shidong and Kuai Man, also won their quarter-final in straight games (Baidu's board followed both matches), leaving both Chinese pairs in the semi-finals.

There was an international casualty in the other half of the draw. India's Manush Shah and Diya Chitale eliminated Hong Kong, China's Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem, ending the thirteen-year partnership's bid for a first Asian Games mixed-doubles medal (HK01's account) — which means Wang and Sun's next opponents are the Indian pair, not a Japanese one.

The semi-final line-up restores the order Wednesday's team final had overturned, at least in this event: the mixed-doubles title China has never really ceded is back on its expected course, and the sport's most famous pair play on.