Day 2 Review: Hsing exits as Chinese enter

Hsing's victory earlier in the day – a 4-2 triumph against 49-year-old Xia Ni – set up a mouth-watering third-round clash with number-two seed Li Xiaoxia.

But that mountain was always likely to prove too steep for the youngster – who has caught the imagination in this tournament – as she eventually fell to a valiant 4-2 defeat after giving Xiaoxia – who sits 112 places ahead of her in the world rankings – plenty of problems.

For Xiaoxia, the mantra at these Games is very simple: nothing less than a silver medal will do.

That seems a possible outcome and the woman she would most likely face in the final, team-mate Ding Ning, also hit the ground running.

The pressure is even more intense on Ning, who last year won gold at the World Cup and World Championships and is competing in the Games for the first time.

She is on course, at the age of 22, to complete a coveted Grand Slam – not that the pressure showed as she despatched Daniela Dodean in straight games.

'Whenever other countries play someone from China, they see us as a target,' she said.

'They have nothing to lose because they know we are the best team in the world. I did feel the pressure but I get support from my team and the people supporting back in China.'

Natalia Partyka failed to follow up her second-round heroics as she surrendered a two-game lead to lose 4-2 versus Li Jie.

Ai Fukuhara cruised to a 4-0 victory over Anna Tikhomirova, while her higher-ranked compatriot Kasumi Ishikawa overcame an early scare to beat Li Qiangbing 4-2.

Kim Kyung-Ah and Feng Tianwei, ranked fifth and eighth in the ITTF standings respectively, beat Liu Jia and Chen Szu-Yu 4-1.

Meanwhile, there were also wins for the European trio of Belarus' Viktoria Pavlovich, Germany's Wu Jiaduo and Spain's Shen Yanfei.

Poland's Li Qian and Singapore's Wang Yuegu claimed straight-games victories against their respective opponents.

Wins for Republic of Korea's Park Mi-Young, the Netherlands' Li Jiao and a shock success for Elizabeta Samara rounded off the evening.

In the men's event, El-Sayed Lashin made sure Zoran Primorac's seventh Olympic Games appearance was not a happy one as he put the Croation out.

Host Nation supporters roared Great Britain's Paul Drinkhall to a shock 4-1 success against Singapore's Yang Zi while soon after the Brit's triumph, Jean-Michel Saive was knocked out via a 4-1 loss against Kalinikos Kreanga.

A disappointing day for the veterans was then finished off when Jorgen Persson, who finished fourth at Beijing 2008, was whitewashed by Croatia's Andrej Gacina.