In the showdown of two unbeaten rivals, hosts China turned it into an one-side 7-1 easy win over Japan, the last opponents of their preliminary round at the 7th Asian women's softball championship on Friday.

China, silver medalists at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, remained the only unbeaten team through the nine matches of their qualifying round and led the top four finishers entered the play- offs phase starts on Saturday.

Japan, who rounded up 16 points from eight wins, placed second, with South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the third and fourth places in a row, both having six wins.

Niki Keiko snapped China's perfect record as the center fielder scored the only point in the entire qualifying round against China, who is aiming to win their fourth consecutive title in the Shanghai championship.

Without their top pitcher Masubuchi Mariko, Japan still managed to open the score when Keiko ran home on Iwabuchi Ayako's bingle in the third inning.

But China dominated the rest of the match and collected four points in the second inning, a pair in the fifth and the final point in the seventh.

"Neither teams had come out strongly in the game," Chinese head coach Liu Yaming said. "The Japanese made lots of unforced mistakes after leading 1-0."

"Our players were also lack of concentrations and they didn't show their forms." liu added.

In Friday's other games, Japan beat the Philippines 5-0, Singapore routed Hong Kong of China 13-1, and South Korea blew Indonesia 10-0; The DPR Korea defeated the Philippines 2-1 and Singapore 4-0.

Chinese Taipei, who smashed Thailand 9-0 and Indonesia 3-0, collected 10 points to claim the fifth place, followed by the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong of China.