China set one foot in the quarterfinals of the women's ice hockey tournament at Beijing 2022 thanks to a heroic performance from goaltender Zhou Jiaying.

Zhou's brilliance helped the host to a 2-1 penalty shootout victory over higher-ranked Japan in its third group game on Sunday.

After earning two points from the victory over world No 6 Japan, Team China now ranks third with five points in the five-team Group B, and will advance to the last eight should it not be beaten in regulation by Sweden in its last group game on Monday.

Zhou saved all five penalty shots from Japan in the shootout, while her teammate Mi Le scored China's fourth attempt to secure an invaluable two-point win for the host.

After Japan had opened the scoring in the first period, China netted in the third period to send the contest to overtime.

According to Olympic rules, a team scores three points for a regulation-time win, two for an overtime win and one for an overtime loss.

"I felt a little nervous but I believed we would win in the end. And I was thinking back to the videos I watched, the moves they like to make, and when the shootout started, I just focused on their shots," Zhou said of her preparation for the shootout.

China captain Yu Baiwei, a veteran of the team's previous Winter Olympics appearance at the 2010 Vancouver Games, cautioned that it's no time to celebrate.

"We know that, just like this one, every game in the coming days will be a fierce battle. We will do our best game by game. We did not think about the results in the beginning."