RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Li Xiaoxia, Liu Shiwen and Ding Ning combined to win the women's team table tennis gold on Tuesday to keep China on target for their third consecutive Games cleansweep of titles.

The Chinese women swept aside Germany's Han Ying, Shan Xiaona, and Petrisse Solja 3-0 to add another gold to the table tennis superpower's wins last week in the men's and women's singles.

China's men's team will be strong favourites to topple Japan in the final medal match at Rio 2016 on Wednesday.

This was China's 27th gold medal from the last 31 available since table tennis first appeared at an Olympics in Seoul in 1988.

For Ding Ning this was a second gold after her defeat of Li in the women's singles final.

Li it was who sent China on their way with a 3-0 defeat of Han in the opening match.

Then Liu accounted for Solja 3-0.

Ding and Liu united to see off Shan and Solja 3-1 to wrap up the best-of-five tie with room to spare.