(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)
TeamUSA topped India 8-3 in their opening match against India, 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 India, the Mixed Doubles pairing of Ke and Naresh won two of the three games to give USA an early lead. Sally Moyland then defeated Yashaswini Ghorpade 2-1 to extend USA’s lead to 4-2 overall. USA’s Xiangjing Zhang then defeated Jeet Chandra 2-1 and Zhang and Liang teamed up to seal the win for TeamUSA with a 2-0 victory over Suravajjula and Chandra.
Next up for TeamUSA is Australia. The top seed in the group is China, but TeamUSA is now in a very strong position to advance (as the top 2 teams in each group will advance). Thus far in the other groups, Japan, Korea, and Sweden are each leading a group. Among the surprises thus far include Germany falling to Japan 8-3, Taipei falling to Singapore, and France losing to Hong Kong. No team is eliminated at this point, but each of those squads will need to win their next two matches to have a realistic opportunity to advance.
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