Mixed fortunes for Chinese duos in Paralympic table tennis

Paralympic powerhouse China had three doubles pairs in gold medal action at the Paris Games on Sunday, adding two golds and a silver to its already burgeoning medals tally.

Feng Panfeng and Zhou Ying claimed the first gold of the day's action for China before Liao Keli and Yan Shuo also emerged victorious, but Liu Chaodong and Zhao Yiqing went down in straight games as they took silver.

Things did not go China's way in the opening match of the three finals, with Poland's Patryk Chojnowski and Piotr Grudzien beating Liu and Zhao 3-0 for MD18 men's doubles gold.

There was a dispute with an official over a point in the first set and speaking after the match, Chinese silver medallist Liu said the incident "put us off our game and we didn't get going again".

"I think the disagreement with the official distracted us... It affected us mentally and we needed to focus more. We are disappointed," Liu added.

But China, long the dominant force in the sport of table tennis, bounced back against Thailand in the second and third finals to win gold.

First, Feng and Zhou beat Thai duo Yuttajak Glinbancheun and Wijittra Jaion three games to one in the XD7 mixed doubles final.

"We are very happy," said Feng. "We prepared very hard for this match... We studied our rivals' strengths and weaknesses, and it worked well."

Liao and Yan then rounded off Sunday's early action by coming back from one game down to also beat a Thai pairing 3-1 in the MD14 men's doubles final.

China won 96 gold medals at Tokyo 2020 and so far in Paris lead the overall medals table with a total of 24 golds by the midway point of action on Sunday.