Taiwan solidified its chance to compete for gold in the East Asian Games women's basketball tournament after beating Japan 76-63 in a preliminary round game in Hong Kong Friday. Taiwan led the Japanese 36-32 at halftime but broke the game open with a 25-9 third quarter. The winners were led by Liu Chun-yi with 22 points and Cheng Hui- yun with 19. Yoshie Sakurada led Japan with 21. With the win, Taiwan joined Japan at the top of the five-team preliminary round pool with a 2-1 record. South Korea and China are both 1-1 and face off Sunday, while Taiwan concludes its preliminary round play on Monday against the Koreans. All four teams are likely to reach the semifinals at the expense of Macau, but Taiwan would like to top the group to be better positioned in the semifinal round. In the cue sports, Taiwan's Wu Yu-lun beat South Korea's Kim Do Hoon in the 15-red snooker single men's bronze medal match 4-0 to garner bronze. But Taiwan's Lin Yuan-chun was defeated by Kim Ga Young of South Korea 7-3 in the women's 9-ball women's semifinals. In table tennis, Taiwan's Wu Chih-chi and Huang Yi-hua beat their South Korean rivals 4-1 (11-5, 11-6, 7-11, 14-12) in the mixed doubles quarterfinals. A second Taiwanese mixed doubles duo, Chiang Hung-chieh and Cheng Yi-ching, also lost in the quarterfinals 4-2 to Jiang Huajun and Tang Peng of Hong Kong. Taiwanese teams lost to South Korea and Japan respectively in the women's doubles quarterfinals Friday. Before Saturday's formal East Asian Games opening ceremony, a flag-raising ceremony was held Friday, with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang presiding. Taiwan was the seventh of the nine countries and regions to raise its flag based on its initial 'T.' Lin Hung-dao, leader of the Taiwan team, led other members in the ceremony. A total of nine countries and regions are participating in the 2009 East Asian Games, which end Dec. 13. 