IMAGE| ABC News: Ashleigh Stevenson

By David McPherson

Two Australian doubles teams progressed past the round of 16 in the Australian Table Tennis Open on the Gold Coast this week.

Men’s duo Heming Hu and Xin Yan won their first round encounter with New Zealand’s Cheng Zhiyang and Liu Tengteng, while women’s pair Jian Fang Lay and Miao Miao also won in the round of 16.

Both teams lost in the following round.

Male singles hope David Powell was unable to overcome significant odds to defeat his Singaporean opponent Ning Gao, ranked over 250 spots higher in the ITTF rankings.

Powell lost four games to zero (11-7, 11-4, 11-4, 11-3).

Jian Fang Lay couldn’t back up her doubles performance on the singles side of the competition, losing her first round match to Korea’s Eunhye Lee four games to one (11-8, 11-4, 7-11, 13-11, 11-9).

The men’s final will be played tonight between France’s Simon Gauzy and Belarus’ Vladamir Samsonov after event favourite Jun Mizutani made a surprise quarter-final exit.

The women’s final will be an all-Chinese affair as Wang Manyu and Chen Meng face off.