Aust hunts for four table tennis golds

Australia will have the opportunity to collect four table tennis paralympic gold medals on Tokyo’s top Saturday.

Sam von Eimem can best get his Rio silver medal after achieving an epic 3-2 victory over Paralympic winner Florian van Aker.

The Belgian won the first two rounds before Queenslander von Eimem dug deep to win the next three to win a place in Sunday’s C11 gold medal match against Hungarian Peter Palos.

Von Eimem joined Ma Lin, Lina Lee and Qian Yang in the gold medal round after Chinese-born athletes also enjoyed the semi-finals on Saturday.

Lin, who lost his hand in a bear attack at a Chinese zoo as a child, defeated Ukrainian Ivan Mai 3-1 and seeks gold against Belgian Laurens Devos on Saturday night.

Devos won C9 gold in Rio, while four-time Paralympic winner Lin, who traded his loyalty to Australia in 2017, last won a doubles gold in London in 2012.

Lei also competed in four Chinese Paralympics from 2004 to 2016 and won five gold medals and three silver medals in the singles and team classes before dressing in green and gold.

Lei promoted Hungary’s Alexa Szvitacs 3-2 in the women’s C9 semi-finals on Saturday and is now battling Chinese Guiyan Xiong on Monday.

Later on Saturday, Yang snatched the win in the women’s C10 semi-final defeat and won 3-2 in a five-set epic against Polish star Natalia Partyka.

Partyka had won gold at the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Paralympics and led the semi-finals 2-1 and eventually 9-4.

But Yang rewinded the last seven points of the match to win and get a gold medal match against Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandra on Monday.

Yang previously won silver while competing against China in singles in 2012 and 2016, while he won team gold in London and team silver in Rio.

Yang had advanced to the top four finalists by beating his Australian teammate Melissa Tapper in the semi-finals earlier in the day.

Melbourne’s training partners tested each other early before Yang won 13-11 11-3 11-8.

Tapper, who has once again competed in both the Olympics and Paralympics, will return to the teams event next week with Yang and Lee.