China maintained its domination in the table tennis arena, overcoming a spirited Germany 3-0 in the men's team final to win its fourth successive gold in the category.
Although, the well-oiled German unit did manage to create a few opportunities, the Chinese supremacy, eventually, was too good to handle.
Ma Long and Xu Xin started the final off with a 3-1 against Timo Boll and Patrick Franziska.
Then came the match of the day between the men’s singles silver and bronze medallists. Dimitrij Ovtcharov, the German sensation, stretched Fan Zhendong to the hilt. However, just like he did in the singles semifinal against Ma Long, Ovtcharov fell short in the deciding game. Fan ran away with the deciding game 11-3 to win the match 3-2 and hand China a 2-0 lead in the rubber.
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Ma Long, who last week became the first men’s paddler to win two singles Olympic gold medals, then overpowered veteran southpaw Boll in an equally exciting contest. Boll saved three championship points and won the third game. Despite Boll displaying his old charm of inside out forehand top-spins and backhand drives, Long was too consistent to eventually with the match in four games and stamp China’s dominance.
Host Japan earned the bronze medal earlier in the day by defeating Republic of Korea 3-1.
The table tennis event concluded with China winning four of the five gold medals on offer, with host Japan walking away with the yellow metal in mixed doubles, a category that was added in the Olympics for the first time in Tokyo.
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