(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)

TeamUSA fell in their opening match against Romania, in early action at the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup in Sichuan Gymnasium in Chengdu, China.  With a unique scoring system where there are five matches and each pairing plays three games only.  The first team to score 8 points wins – whether that threshold is reached in the third match (or the fourth, or the fifth).

For TeamUSA in their match against Romania, the Mixed Doubles pairing of Zhang and Liang won one of the three games (losing the first game 5-11, narrowing falling in the second 12-14, and winning the third 11-4). Match two was dominated by Elizabeta Samara who topped Amy Wang 3-0, giving Romania a strong 5-1 advantage.  Sid Naresh helped mount a comeback with a 2-1 win over Andrei Istrate (6-3 with Romania leading).  And TeamUSA continued the comeback in the Women’s Doubles round winning 2 of 3 (7-5 Romania leading).  However, the final match was Liang/Naresh against Ionescu/Istrate and Romania won the first game 11-9, reaching 8 total points and securing the win.

Next up for TeamUSA is Australia.

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