Olympics: China's women fire up steamroller in table tennis

Thursday 21 August 2008

BEIJING - China's women table tennis champions crushed their hapless opponents Wednesday, as the host nation opened its campaign for the Olympic singles title in scintillating style.

World number one and defending Olympic champion Zhang Yining barely broke into a sweat on her way to defeating unseeded Viktoria Pavlovich from Belarus 4-0, one of the games lasting just three minutes.

After clinching the women's team gold, China, where table tennis is the national sport played by millions, are gunning for the singles crown, a title they have never lost since the sport was introduced at the 1988 Olympics.

"I'm happy that we won the teams gold medal, but that's only part of my goal. The singles competition is a gruelling task and I will make full preparations for it," Zhang said.

Teammate Wang Nan, one of the most decorated paddlers in the history of the sport with 23 world titles, and playing at her last Olympics, similarly steamrolled Georgina Pota from Hungary, ranked 46 in the world, 4-0.

Wang, the veteran of the team at 29, now takes on South Korea's 15th seed Park Mi Young who conceded the showdown was daunting.

"I have never won against Wang Nan before. But no matter win or lose, I will try my best. I'd like to show the crowd a spectacular match."

China's world champion Guo Yue also motored over Hong Kong's Lau Sui Fei by the same margin in 24 minutes, but played down her chances here.

"Skills and techniques are only 50 percent of the game. Mental strengths, willpower and luck play the rest," she said.

China's equally formidable men, who also won gold in the team competition, kickstart their campaign Thursday.

Zhang now plays Japan's 19-year-old prodigy Ai Fukuhara in the round of 16 after the darling of the Japanese team defeated Melek Hu from Turkey 4-1.

Fukuhara, who made the Japanese team at the age of 11 after turning professional at 10, and is competing at her second Olympics, was mobbed by autograph hunters as she left the arena.

Singapore's fourth seed Li Jia Wei also advanced over Croatia's Tamara Boros 4-1, although the city state's flag bearer was critical of her performance.

"I am a little tired, but it did not affect the competition that much. (But) I was pretty average today (Wednesday)," she said.

Singapore, fresh from winning silver in the team event, its first Olympic medal in any sport for 48 years, are gunning for an upset over China.

But they suffered an early shock when fifth seed Wang Yue Gu was dumped in her first match 4-1 by the Dominican Republic's Wu Xue.

Chinese-born Gao Jun from the United States survived a marathon match against Slovakia's Eva Odorova to win 4-2, and then Japan's Hirano Sayaka 4-1.

Gao won silver in doubles playing for China at the 1992 Olympics before retiring and then emigrating to the United States and resurrecting her career.