Ning Ding and Xiaoxia Li of China - London Olympics 2012

Ning Ding and Xiaoxia Li of China compete during women's Team Table Tennis

Ning Ding and Xiaoxia Li of China during their first round victory in the women's Team Table Tennis against team of Spain on Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Excel.

China's quest for another Table Tennis gold medal started in perfect fashion as the women began the Team event with a whitewash of Spain.

Nothing less than a maximum haul of four golds and two silvers in the sport will do for the Asian powerhouse.

They are on course to reach that target after Xiaoxia Li and Jike Zhang beat compatriots Ning Ding and Hao Wang respectively in the Singles finals. And that form continued today in the Team event.

Newly-crowned champion Li was first up, with Shen Yanfei not up to the challenge of competing as she lost the games 11-4, 11-7 and 14-12.

Guo Yue, ranked eighth in the world, then competed in the event for the first time in overcoming Sara Ramirez.

Li and Ding - the world number one who was beaten by her doubles partner in the individual final - then finished the job by whitewashing Galia Dvorak and Ramirez.

World Team champions Singapore, meanwhile, got their campaign off the ground with a 3-1 victory over a strong-looking Poland, while Japan eased to the most comfortable of victories over the USA , winning 3-0 to prompt an early completion.

Ariel Hsing was first up for the USA. However, she was comfortably beaten 3-0 by Ai Fukuhara before Lily Zhang also fell to a heavy loss against Sayaka Hirano.

Fukuhara and Kasumi Ishikawa, who finished fourth in the individual event, then combined to continue Japan's run of not conceding a game, cruising past Zhang and Erica Wu.

Republic of Korea also did not concede a game in beating Brazil as Kim Kyung-ah and Seok Ha-jung initially beat Caroline Kumahara and Gui Lin respectively.

Kim and Park Mi-young then finished the job by despatching Gui and Ligia Silva in equally resounding fashion.

Elsewhere, there were victories for Honk Kong, Holland, North Korea and Germany.

In the men's Team event, Germany edged out Sweden in a six-match thriller.

Half of the last-16 encounters were completed at the ExCeL Arena tonight, with the remaining four to be played tomorrow morning.

In the pick of the action, Germany were pushed all the way by their Scandinavian opponents. The clash started with world number seven Timo Boll continuing his disappointing Games as he was beaten 3-1 by Jorgen Persson.

Boll was knocked out of the singles by the Romania's Adrian Crisan in the fourth round and did not fare any better versus veteran Persson.

But Dimitrij Ovtcharov, who claimed bronze in the individual format, got things back on track by overcoming Par Gerell.

Boll and Bastian Steger then combined to beat Gerell and Jens Lundqvist before the latter overcame Persson 3-0 to seal Germany's passage to the quarter-finals.

In the last eight, they will be joined by Austria, Hong Kong and Portugal, who eased to 3-0 successes against Egypt, Brazil and host nation Great Britain respectively.