Boll, Xu enter men's round of 16 at table tennis worlds

DUSSELDORF, Germany, June 2 (Xinhua) -- German star Timo Boll beat Jang Woojin of South Korea to reach the men's singles last 16 at the World Table Tennis Championships here on Friday.

Boll, ranked eighth in the world, defeated Jang 4-1 (11-9, 8-11, 12-10, 11-8, 11-5) and will next play either Marcos Freitas of Portugal or Tristan Flore of France.

Third seed Xu Xin of China removed the last man standing from outside of Europe and Asia, defeating Hugo Calderano of Brazil 4-1. Calderano showed signs of pushing the match deeper early on, but nothing came to fruition as he lost 10-12, 11-7, 6-11, 3-11, 4-11.

Japan's 13-year-old sensation Harimoto Tomokazu routed Liao Cheng-Ting of Chinese Taipei 4-0 and Slovakia's Lubomir Pistej also whitewashed Tamas Lakatos of Hungary.

Harimoto will next meet Pistej for a place in the quarterfinals.

In the women's event, Japan's 17-year-old Asian champion Miu Hirano overpowered Feng Tianwei of Singapore 4-0 while Zhu Yuling beat Chen Meng 4-2 in an all-Chinese affair.

Miu will play the winner of the match between defending champion Ding Ning and Japan's Kaumi Ishikawa in the semifinals while Zhu will take on either second seed Liu Shiwen or Mu Zi, both from China.