17-year-olds bag gold for Taiwan at U19 table tennis championships

Taipei, Nov. 30 (CNA) Two Taiwanese teenage table tennis talents won gold for Taiwan at an International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) youth championship held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on Saturday.

Seventeen-year-olds Kuo Guan-hong (郭冠宏) and Hsu Hsien-chia (徐絃家) captured the U19 boys' doubles title after edging Japan's Ryuusei Kawakami and Kazuki Yoshiyama in a five-game final at BT Arena.

The Taiwanese pair looked set to close out the best-of-five match in straight games after taking the first two 11-4, 11-9. But the Japanese duo rallied to even the score, claiming the next two games 13-11 and 11-9.

In a tense decider, Kuo and Hsu stayed level with their opponents before pulling ahead with two straight points to seal the match 11-9.

The victory marks Taiwan's first gold in the U19 boys' doubles event since the former U18 World Junior Table Tennis Championships were reorganized into the ITTF World Youth Championships (U19 + U15) in 2021.

In 2021, Kuo and Hsu also won Taiwan's first -- and so far only -- U15 boys' doubles gold, defeating another Japanese pair in the final at the competition in Nova Gorica, Slovenia.