Gao Jun Wins Opening Round
Dec. 09, 2005

Courtesy ITTF Second seed, Singapore's LI Jia Wei concluded proceedings on the first day of play at the Volkswagen Pro Tour Grand Finals in Fuzhou, China by beating colleague, WANG Yue Gu in five games to progress to the second round. It was the third time the pair had met on the ITTF Pro Tour in 2005 and it was the third time that LI Jia Wei had won. She had succeeded previously at the Volkswagen Open Korea in June and the following week at the TMS Chinese Taipei Open.

Reversal
In round two she meets Croatia's Tama BOROS who overcame Hong Kong's LIN Ling also in five games and to some extent reversed the results of earlier encounters. The pair had met previously on five occasions in World Ranking events and on only one of those meetings had BOROS prevailed, that being the last sixteen of the Women's Singles event at the Liebherr Croatian Open in earlier in the year.

Defeat for LIN Ling but for her colleague TIE Yana better news, she beat compatriot LAU Sui Fei in six games and plays another penhold grip player in round two, GAO Jun of the United States, a player TIE Yana rather enjoys playing. The two met recently at the Liebherr Swedish Open and TIE Yana won comfortably in straight games at the semi-final stage; the victim of GAO Jun in the opening round being Singapore's SUN Bei Bei.

Top Seed
Earlier in the day top seed China's ZHANG Yinging had beaten Germany's Elke WOSIK and plays another German in the quarter-finals, Nicole STRUSE, the victor over Hong Kong's ZHANG Rui.

Also, in the top half of the draw, the two Koreans, MOON Hyun Jung and KIM Kyung Ah emerged successful. MOON Hyun Jung overcame the defensive skills of Victoria PAVLOVICH of Belarus while, in contrast, it was KIM Kyung Ah's defensive skills that won the day. She beat Spain's SHEN Yanfei.

Under 21
Meanwhile, in the Under 21 Women's Singles, Italy's Nicoletta STEFANOVA and Austria's LI Qiangbing finished in first place in their group with Singapore's SUN Bei Bei and Korea's LEE Eun Hee occupying the two top places in the counterpart group.

In the semi-finals, Nicoletta STEFANOVA plays LEE Ein Hee while LI Qiangbing faces SUN Bei Bei.

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