SINGAPORE, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Japan's top 10 table tennis players Ai Fukuhara and Kasumi Ishikawa dropped out of in the group matches on Saturday, failing to reach the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup.

Fukuhara, the popular world No. 8 had a tough time against South Korean defense specialist Kim Kyung Ah and lost the match 2-4.

Kim advanced to the quarterfinals scheduled on Saturday evening together with China's world No. 1 Li Xiaoxia, who beat all the other three players in group A.

Ishikawa, the world No. 7, won a round-robin match against Victoria Pavlovich of Bulgaria 4-1 but lost against Tie Yana of Hong Kong, China, and Wu Jiaduo of Germany. Both Tie and Wu advanced to the quarterfinals after the round-robin matches of group D.

Ding Ning of China and Wang Yuegu of Singapore emerged successful from group B. Feng Tianwei, now world No. 4, and Sayaka Hirano of Japan made it to the quarterfinals from group C.

The top two players from each of the groups after the round-robin matches will play the quarterfinals on Saturday for the 150,000 U.S. dollar event. The winner will get a prize of 45,000 dollars.

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