South Korea surprised Hong Kong, China with a "last-minute" replacement in the table tennis women's team quarterfinals Saturday and successfully beat them 3-0 to secure a berth in the semifinals.

The replacement was announced officially six hours before the start of the match. Right-handed chopper Park Mi-Young was replaced by Dang Ye-Seo, a former Chinese player who switched allegiance to South Korea.

Dang beat Hong Kong's Tie Yana 3-0 in the opening game. Kim Kyung-Ah won a close match against Hong Kong's Jiang Huajun 3-2. South Korea pair Dang/Seok Ha-Jung (also a former Chinese player) secured an overall 3-0 victory after defeating Hong Kong's Lee Ho Ching/Tie Yana 3-2 in the doubles.

Li Huifen, coach of team Hong Kong, said they were caught by South Korea's last-minute replacement. Both Park and Kim are choppers and they have been playing doubles in international competitions.

"We had a lot of training targeting at choppers in the doubles. They replaced a chopper with an attacker. That really made a difference," Li said.

South Korea won bronze medal in women's team events in Beijing. It will fight against top seed China on Monday in the semifinal.

Beijing silver medalist Singapore successfully avoided meeting China before the final. It knocked out the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to set up a semifinal meeting with Japan, who beat Germany 3-0.

Saturday morning also featured the first round of four men's teams. No. 1 ranked team China staged a class play in their 3-1 win over Russia, to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Singapore on Sunday.

No. 2 seed South Korea survived a tight battle with the DPRK (3-1) to book a quarterfinal clash with Portugal.

Japan easily beat Canada in three straight matches to take on Hong Kong, China. Austria will meet Germany.

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