Chinese player Zhang Yining, ranked world No.1 in singles, beat South Korean chopper Kim Kyung Ah 4-1 here Saturday to advance into the women's singles final of the table tennis tournament of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Zhang won the match 13-11, 11-8, 11-6, 5-11 and 11-8.
With this victory, the 21-year-old Zhang, who was crowned women's doubles champion along with her teammate Wang Nan Friday, was just one step away from grabbing two table tennis golds at one Olympic Games.
So far there are only two female Chinese paddlers who had won the honor of Olympic double champion. Deng Yaping bagged all four golds for singles and doubles in Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996 while Wang Nan took two golds in Sydney 2000.
"I had made full preparations for today's match. I knew it would be a very tough match and I was ready to play seven games," said Zhang.
Zhang was 6-2 ahead in the first game, but only to let Kim chop her way back and gain three game points at 10-7. But the world No.1 adjusted her tactics timely with more ferocious attacks and took the game 13-11.
"I think Zhang was very calm in the match and displayed a good fighting spirit on the court," said Lu Yuansheng, coach of the Chinese women's team.
A famous chopper himself when playing for China, Lu admitted that he also gave his player some "hints" about how to beat a defensive player.
"I told Zhang that it was unnecessary to play hard balls all the time, that sometimes she could also play softly to disrupt the rhythm of her opponent," said Lu. "Anyway, this is a match, not a show."
Kim, who beat Chinese ace player Wang Nan once at the world team championships in Doha, Qatar this year, was the first defensive player to enter the last four of women's singles at an Olympic tournament.
In the singles final scheduled for Sunday afternoon Athens time, Zhang will take on DPR Korean Kim Hyang Mi, who beat Singaporean Li Jiawei Saturday in a breathtaking 4-3 match.
The tenacious Kim, who eliminated China's world singles No.3 Niu Jianfeng 4-0 in singles round 4 and also defeated another Singapore player Zhang Xueling 4-2 in the quarterfinal stage, came back from an almost impossible situation as she trailed 1-3 in the first four games and lost the third 0-11.
The scores for the match were 8-11, 11-6, 0-11,8-11, 11-8, 11-6and 11-9.
The Singaporean had defeated Wang Nan, one of the top favorites for the singles gold, in their quarterfinal encounter, shattering the Chinese veteran's dream of winning two golds again in Athens.
Zhang said that she had never played the DPR Korean before. "But I will prepare carefully and play the match with a normal heart," she said. "I will not feel pressure as long as I don't think too much about the gold thing."
(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2004)
