Ko proves surprise name

Ko beat defending champion Ryu Seung-min of South Korea 4-2 in the third round and then took out Germany's rising star, world number 14 Dimitrij Ovtcharov, 4-1 in the fourth round.

Ryu's defeat left Oh Sang-eun as the only surviving South Korean player in the competition. Oh kept Korea's hopes of a medal alive by beating Timo Boll of Germany in the fourth round. Oh will play Ma Lin of China in the quarterfinal.

Two veterans, Zoran Primorac of Croatia and Jorgen Persson of Sweden, who have competed at every Olympic Games since Table Tennis made its debut at Seoul 1988, will face each other in the quarter-final.

Primorac defeated Michael Maze of Denmark and Singapore's Yang Zi to qualify, while Persson saw off Cheung Yuk of Hong Kong and then edged past world number five Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus.

China's trio of stars encountered few significant problems in their road to the quarter-finals.

Top seed Wang Hao beat Chen Weixing of Austria and Kan Yo of Japan. Number two Ma Lin accounted for Bojan Tokic of Slovenia and then Kalinikos Kreanga of Greece, while third seed Wang Liqin overpowered Lucjan Blaszczyk of Poland and Werner Schlager of Austria.

In the women's competition, all three Chinese contenders, Zhang Yining, Guo Yue and Wang Nan, moved into the semi-finals after hard-fought quarter-finals.

The final spot in the last four went to Li Jiawei of Singapore.

Zhang and Li, both Beijing natives, will fight for a final berth in their birth place, while 20-year-old Guo Yue will face the experienced veteran Wang Nan in the semifinals.