Chinese teams regain top seeds after table tennis worlds
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E-mail Xinhua, April 2, 2012
The Chinese teams lived up to expectations by claiming the world titles in both the women' s and men's tournament during the World Team Table Tennis Championships on Sunday.
The Chinese men defeated Germany 3-1. In front of 11,000 spectators in the Westfalenhalle, Zhang Jike won the first match against German No. 1 Timo Boll 3-2, world No. 1 Ma Long was too strong for Dimitrij Ovtcharov (3-0) and Wang Hao beat Patrick Baum 3-1.
"If you look at every game, they did give us strong pressure," said Chinese coach Liu Guoliang, who compared the victory to the 3- 1 win against two years ago in Moscow. "Actually I don't think the gap became bigger in the last two years. They gave us so much pressure in Moscow so we had to prepare better and we did, which resulted in this victory."
China grabbed their sixth world title in a row and their 18th in total. The bronze medals in the men's tournament went to South Korea and Japan.
The Chinese women took revenge for the defeat of 2010 by beating reigning champions Singapore 3-0. Hong Kong and South Korea received the bronze medals.
China grabbed its 18th women's world title in total and has now won nine out of the last ten editions.
World No. 1 Ding Ning beat Singapore's Feng Tianwei 3-1. Li Xiaoxia defeated Wang Yuegu 3-1 and Guo Yue posted a 3-0 win over Li Jiawei.
"I am happy with the performance of all my team," China women coach Shi Zhihao said. "All my five members, although not all of them played a lot. If I have to mention one, I'll have to name Ding Ning. She has really grown up. However, we have to focus on building the whole team, not on one person. Ding Ning is only one member of the team."
During the closing ceremony, Thomas Weikert, president of the German table tennis federation DTTB, named the tournament a great success.
"We wanted to get at least 50,000 spectators and we got at least 55,000," he said. "The spectators gave the players an atmosphere I have never seen in Germany. I am very satisfied. I hope we will be back in Dortmund in the future. Of course I hoped the German men's team could surprise, but I must congratulate both the Chinese teams."
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