Beijing, China, August 17, 2008 -- China's women duos Tian Jia/Wang Jie and Zhang Xi/Xue Chen defeated their rivals respectively in Sunday's beach volleyball quarterfinals at the Beijing Olympics, making a breakthrough for China, a newcomer in beach volleyball tournament.

The two Chinese teams are to meet at the semifinal on August. 19, thus a silver medal is secured for China, whose best Olympic finish was ninth, achieved by Tian Jia and her former partner Wang Fei at the Athens Games.

Played before a pro-Chinese crowd, the fourth-seeded Xue and Zhang scored a 21-17 and 21-13 win in 42 minutes over fifth-seeded Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs to join top-seeded Tian Jia and Wang Jie as the host country’s representatives in the “final four” along with pairs from Brazil and the United States

In a match held on Sunday morning, Tian Jia and Wang Jie easily beat Austrian pair Doris Schwaiger/Stephanie Schwaiger in straight sets. Both sets ended 21-12.

"We played to our usual standard, and we didn't carry a burden today. We didn't think about anything, winning or losing," 1.87-meter-tall Wang said after the match.

“We didn't expect that we could have won so easily, but we prepared a lot for possible difficulties," said Xue after the match.

China's beach volleyball head coach Miao Zhihong said after the matches he was very satisfied with the performance of the Chinese players.”If they give full play to their abilities, they can play well with any team in the world," he added.

In another semifinal, U.S. defending champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, who have had a 106-match winning streak so far, won easily over Ana Paula Connelly and Larissa Franca of Brazil in straight sets 21-18, 21-15.

The Brazilian team was newly-formed. Ana Paula, 36, replaced Juliana Felisberta for the Beijing Games as Juliana is suffering from sharp pains on her right knee and decided days before the Olympics opened not to play.

In the last quarter-final match Sunday evening, Brazil preserved its streak of appearing in each woman’s Olympic Beach Volleyball “final four” as sixth-seeded Talita Antunes and Renata Ribeiro scored a 24-22 and 21-14 win in 47 minutes over 10th-seeded Tamsin Barnett and Natalie Cook of Australia.