Chinese tennis players will aim at a medal in the women's doubles event at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, a leading sports official said in Beijing on Thursday.

This target seems far away from China's Olympic gold-medal performance in the Athens Games this summer, where Chinese duet Sun Tiantian and Li Ting won the doubles title.

But Sun Jingfang, director of the Chinese Tennis Administrative Center, looks the matter the other way. "To be frank, China don't have the absolute capacity to win a medal in the (doubles) event. Chinese players have never reached the last four in the four Grand Slam tournaments and our best result is the women's doubles last eight at this year's Australian Open," Sun said.

For goals in other events, Sun said, China would try to go further than the first round in the women's singles while in men's competition, Olympic qualification is the only goal.

(Xinhua News Agency December 24, 2004)