Chinese Niu Jianfeng, ranked 3rd in the world, lost to DPR Korea's Kim Hyang Mi 0-4 in their women's singles fourth round encounter in the table tennis tournament of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games Wednesday evening.
Niu, singles champion of the 2003 pro tour finals, conceded four straight sets to the 40th-ranked DPR Korean girl in what could be called a one-sided match. The scores were 11-8, 11-9, 11-9 and 11-4. The loss shut Niu out of the singles quarterfinals.
This was the second major upset for the all-mighty Chinese table tennis team, which had come to Athens to defend their titles in all the four events of the Olympic table tennis tournament.
One of China's ace pairs for men's doubles, formed by veteran Kong Linghui and new star Wang Hao, was denied a position in the last eight after losing to Swedish veterans Jan-Ove Waldner and Jorgen Persson 1-4 earlier on Wednesday.
"Sorry, I don't want to say anything at this moment," Niu told the media people waiting in the mixed zone while walking out of the competition venue.
Since her very first match in the doubles played Monday evening, the 23-year-old Niu had seemed to be seriously out of form, but still staggered to victory in her previous matches.
On Tuesday evening, Niu was pushed to the edge by German Elke Wosik, ranked only 46th in the world, as she lost the first two games and trailed 1-3 behind in the first four games. Fortunately, the German was exhausted by the tense match and gave Niu the chance to stage an almost impossible comeback.
In the women's doubles quarterfinals played Wednesday morning, Niu and her young partner Guo Yue also walked tightrope to beat Japan's Fujinuma Ai and Umemura Aya 4-2 to book a semifinal berth.
"We are not satisfied from our performance (in the tournament) till now," said Niu after the quarterfinal match.
"Therefore, we are not thinking the medal right now, but (how) to play better," she said.
Niu, who is participating in the Olympic Games for the first time, had said before coming to Athens that she wanted to bring at least one Olympic gold home.
Now out of the singles event, her only hope lies in the doubles event. In the semifinal match scheduled for Thursday, Niu and her partner will meet their teammates Wang Nan and Zhang Yining.
What could comfort the Chinese head coach Cai Zhenhua now was that the other two women's singles players, world No. 1 Zhang Yining and No. 2 Wang Nan, both sailed into the last 8.
Zhang, who had had a quite stable performance in her previous matches, beat Lau Sui Fei of Chinese Hong Kong smoothly 4-1, while Wang, despite conceding her first game 9-11, staged a strong comeback and defeated Adriana Zamfir of Romania 4-1.
Zhang will meet Croatian Tamara Boros while Wang will face Li Jiawei of Singapore in the quarterfinals scheduled also for Thursday.
The other players in the women's singles quarterfinals are Tie Yana of Chinese Hong Kong, Kim Kyung Ah of South Korea and Zhang Xueling of Singapore.
The two Chinese pairs are set to play each other in the semi-finals. According to the new Olympic draw rules introduced by the International Table Tennis Federation, two doubles pairs of the same association must be drawn to the same half of the tournament.
(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2004)
