China Open: Crisis of Confidence for World Champion
May 15, 2008

Courtesy of ITTF Changchun, China - Reigning World champion, Wang Liqin, was the one casualty in China’s three-one success over Chinese Taipei in their quarter-final Men’s Team event contest on Wednesday May 14, 2008 at the Volkswagen Open China in Changchun. He lost in straight games to Chuan Chih-Yuan.

“He has to play with less pressure in international events; he needs to win in China and internationally to rebuild his confidence”, said Liu Guoliang, the Chinese Men’s National Team Coach. “He still has some chance to regain confidence before Olympics; we have four more Pro Tours in the near future, if he could win one Men’s Singles’ title in those events it will bring him out of his present state.”

It is the first time that a team event has been introduced into the ITTF Pro Tour and it is organized on the same format as will be used at the forthcoming Beijing Olympic Games.

China secured victory thanks to wins from Ma Lin over both Chang Yen-Shu and Chiang Peng-Lung, while Wang Hao teamed with Wang Liqin to win the doubles against Chiang Peng-Lung and Chang Yen-Shu.

Success for the top seeds and also for the second seeds, Korea; they beat Sweden by three matches to nil while in the two remaining quarter-final fixtures, Singapore overcame North Korea and Hong Kong defeated Japan.

Both matches were resolved by the three-two score line.

Meanwhile, in the Women’s Team competition, where seven teams are on duty, Japan beat North Korea by three matches to one while three-nil score lines were recorded by Korea Republic against Hong Kong and by Singapore in opposition to Chinese Taipei.

China, seeded one, received a bye to the penultimate stage.

In the semi-finals of the Men’s Team event, China confronts Singapore while Korea meets Hong Kong; in the counterpart female event it is China versus Japan and Korea Republic against Singapore.

 

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