by Wade Townsend

Only one game was dropped in the entire Round of 16 of the Junior Boys’ Singles event, which came when Nathan Xu (NZL) defeated Dylan Nguyen (AUS) 4-1.

Otherwise it was 4-0 victories all around.

While the round seemingly lacked fireworks, there are hints of less lacklustre matches on the horizon.

Xuqi Lin (AUS) is newly arrived to the Australian table tennis scene and has been making some noise in local tournaments in Sydney. In Tweed Heads he has so far looked a step above the other Australian juniors and may be the host countries best chance at securing gold. With Sydney a thousand kilometres away tomorrow may be his time to make his mark on a bigger stage.

However it won’t be easy. Lin will be up against Nagoya Kawakami (JPN), who is yet to drop a game so far. This could shape up to be the match of the tournament, the so far unstoppable forces collide.

Kawakami will certainly struggle to keep a clean sheet tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile Fred Xu (AUS) will look to make the most of a fortunate group stage. With Benjamin Gould pulling out of the singles event due to illness, Xu was able to claim top spot and take the number two seed’s draw. However, Xavier Dixon (AUS) will be favourite to take the quarter-final match and move on to the semi-final.

Checkout the full results of matches from Day 3 here. Day 4 matches get underway at 9:00 local time (GMT+10).