French Open: Zhang Yining Overcomes Wang Nan
November 5, 2007

Zhang Yining (CHN) Photo Courtesy of ITTF

Courtesy of ITTF In Toulouse, on the afternoon of Sunday November 4, 2007, China’s Zhang Yining underlined in bold the fact that she is back to form. Anyone who harbors pretensions of extracting the Women’s Singles title that she won in the Galatsi Stadium in Athens in 2004 from her grasp, in her home city of Beijing in 2008, better think again. The number one seed, the reigning Olympic champion, Zhang Yining won her third Women’s Singles title of the year on the ITTF Pro Tour when she beat compatriot Wang Nan in the final in five games.

She secured victory by the margin of 11-6, 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 6-11, 11-4.

Reversal
The current form being displayed by Zhang Yining is a virtual antithesis of the form she showed in the first eight months of 2007.

She played in five ITTF Pro Tour tournaments, in each tournament she was the number one seed and on each occasion she failed to reach the final.

Furthermore, in May at the Liebherr World Championships in Zagreb she exited proceedings quite meekly in the semi-finals of the Women’s Singles event being beaten by the sheer speed of Guo Yue.

Form Changed
However in late August the form changed.

She won the Women’s Singles title at the Panasonic China Open; then in September she ruled supreme in Yangzhou at the China Mobile Asian Championships, while last week she succeeded at the Liebherr Austrian Open in Wels.

Only Loss
The only blip in the past three months came in the final of the Women’s Singles event at the Volkswagen Women’s World Cup in Chengdu when she was beaten by Wang Nan, the player against whom she was to reap revenge in Toulouse.

On that day in Chengdu, Wang Nan was simply outstanding winning a contest full of breathtaking rallies.

Extends Record
At the Liebherr French Open it was Zhang Yining who donned the mantle of being outstanding and in so doing she captured her twenty-fifth Women’s Singles title on the ITTF Pro Tour since she made her debut in 1998 at the Malaysian Open.

It was a tournament which was a potent of things to follow. She won the Women’s Singles event.

Grand Finals
Twenty-five Women’s Singles titles on the ITTF Pro Tour and you can add to that the three times she has been crowned Women’s Singles champion at the ITTF Pro Grand Finals; the grand total is twenty-eight.

Nearest Rival
She is well clear of the field and the name of her nearest rival on the all-time list?

The name is Wang Nan. She has won sixteen Women’s Singles titles at open international tournaments on the ITTF Pro Tour and twice she has been crowned champion at the Grand Finals.

Confrontations
Meanwhile, in matches between Wang Nan and Zhang Yining in World Ranking events, the pendulum has now swung in favor of the latter.

Zhang Yining has won thirteen of their twenty-three encounters.