Raising the Bar to Reign Supreme, Wang and Zhang secure gold
(by Johnathan Humbles / Table Tennis Canada)

From the start of the day it was obvious that there was a mixed doubles team there to ball. They showed no fear as they tore through the competition. Amassing a combined 66-23 point differential in just the two round-robin stages, Eugene Wang & Mo Zhang had one thing on their minds — to finish this day and be crowned the king and queen of mixed doubles for Canada.

The knock-out rounds weren’t much better for their challengers.  In just the quarterfinals and semifinals, Wang and Zhang finished with a combined score of 66-31. Through this point the closest game and the closest match was in the semifinals against the team of Edison Huang and Cindy Wang. Huang and Wang were able to push two games to 7, but then dropped the final game at 11-4.

Prior to the semifinals, Wang and Zhang squared off against Alexander Bu and Isabelle Xiong in the quarterfinals. Knowing from the beginning they were outmatched and overpowered, Bu and Xiong fought gallantly until the end. After dropping the first two games by the scores of 11-4, and 11-3, Bu and Xiong fought back. There were not quite able to take a game, but did extend the final game to the score of 11-6.