Zou kept China's hope alive to win the first gold medal at the world championships as defending champion Russian Sergey Kazakov lost 24-16 to Hungary's Pal Bedak in the other quarter-final bout.

Trailing 9-8 to enter the decisive fourth round, Zou tied it at 10-all and nailed down two winning hits in the re-match of last year's Olympic semi-final, when Zou lost 29-17 to Varela.

Cuba, however, cried foul over the decision.

"No win! No win!" shouted by the Cuban camp outside the locker room, referring to Zou's tactics of getting defensive after taking the lead down the stretch.

"I took the advantage of the rules when I had the lead. It only showed that I'm smarter than him(Varela)," Zou said.

"A win is a win, no matter how ugly it looked like. Zou claimed the lead in the fourth round, and took a clever step to gain the victory. He is a great player," said Chinese coach Zhang Chuanliang. Enditem