​The Romanian women’s team secured the lead in Group 7 of the World Table Tennis Championship in Busan (South Korea), beating Singapore 3:1.

Romania vs. Singapore 3-1 at the World Table Tennis Championships

Bernadette Sox vs Jingyi Zhou 3-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-8)

Elizabeth Samara vs. Jian Zeng 1-3 (7-11, 11-9, 11-13, 7-11)

Adina Diaconu vs. Lin Qian Ser 3-0 (11-9, 11-5, 11-3)

Bernadette Sox vs. Jian Zeng 3-0 (11-6, 12-10, 11-9).

8 rating group:

1. Romania (9-1) 6 points / 3 games played

2. Sweden (3-5) 3/2

3. Serbia (3-1) 2/1

4. Singapore (3-6) 2/2

5. Canada (1-6) 2 / 2.

The top-placed team qualifies for the round of 16, and a presence in the quarters guarantees a presence at the Paris Olympics.

CM Table Tennis, women’s program of Romania

• 7 group

Romania vs. Sweden 3-0

Romania vs. Canada 3-0

Romania vs. Singapore 3-1

Romania – Serbia / Monday, 10:00.

The women’s team consists of Bernadette Shox, Elizabeth Samara, Andrea Dragoman, Adina Diacona, Elena Zacharia, trainers Viorel Filimon, Michaela Steff and physiotherapist Petruc Gice.

CM Table tennis, Romanian men’s program

• 8 group

Romania vs. Portugal 0-3

Romania vs. Egypt 3-0

Romania – Thailand / Sunday, 13:00

Romania – Iran / Tuesday, 06:00.

The team consists of Ovidiu Ionescu, Eduardo Ionescu, Darius Movilianu, Andrej Istrate, Julian Chirica, trainers Andrej Filimon, Ionuc Seni and physiotherapist Adrian Mirza. The Romanian delegation also includes a psychologist: Mioara Shinkan.

Know:

• 40 women’s and men’s teams take part in the competition. The World Team Championship is a qualifying criterion for the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the top eight teams will have direct qualification for the Olympics.

• The winners of the groups will advance directly to the 1/8 finals, and the 2nd and 3rd place teams will advance to the 1/8 finals.

• At the last two World Cups in 2018 (Halmstad, Sweden) and 2014 (Tokyo, Japan), the women’s national team took fifth place, writes Agerpres.