China surprisingly beat New Zealand and Hong Kong and advanced to quarterfinals of the boccia Mixed Team category Wednesday with the two straight wins.

China, world No. 22, opened the first day of the Mixed Team competition with a convincing 8-4 victory over world No. 4 New Zealand. Later, they beat Hong Kong 7-3, cleaning their way to the quarterfinals as the top runner in Pool A.

"Wang Yi threw some very accurate balls today because he was calmer and more concentrated after losing yesterday's Bronze medal match." said coach Tian Jia'nan.

"New Zealand defeated us once before the Paralympics. It was important to win against them this morning. It boosted our confidence for this afternoon's match against Hong Kong," he added.

"We played better than we expected. Hong Kong is quite a strong team, but today they didn't play well. We met Hong Kong in the national event previously, so we know how they play."

China will challenge world No. 6 Ireland in the quarterfinal on Thursday.

First finishers in the two pools of the Mixed Pairs will go through to the quarterfinals.

Powerhouses South Korea and Portugal have booked two berths in the semifinals of the Mixed Pairs BC3 category as both of them received two consecutive wins in their own groups.

The South Korea team, including the individual champions at Beijing Paralympics Park Keon-woo and bronze medalist Jeong Ho-won, opened their competition with two big wins as they downed China 9-2 and Canada 9-1 in Pool A.

Pocketing one gold in the Mixed Individual BC1 category, Portugal, consisting of Eunice Raimundo and Armando Costa, also had cruised with wins over the world No.6 Greece 5-2 and New Zealand 8-4.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2008)