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World No. 1 Zhang Yining left as sole Chinese in ProTour finals
2005-12-14
World number one Zhang Yining has been left as the sole Chinese in the table tennis ProTour Grand Finals after all her compatriots lost their day two matches on Saturday in Fuzhou. With a straight-set win over South Korea's Moon Hyun Jung, the 23-year-old Zhang, entering the 240,000 US dollars ITTF year-ending event with a wildcard after playing only three events this season, made an easy through to the women's singles final and later awaited the other title contender Li Jia Wei, the Chinese-born paddler playing for Singapore. Guo Yue and Guo Yan have come out the first Chinese ousted from the finals after the newly fixed pair were beaten 4-2 in the women's doubles first round by Chinese-born Gao Jun and Shen Yanfei, who play for the United States and Spain respectively. Teenage upstart Ma Long came out the last Chinese sacrifice in the Tour finale after losing his quarter-final encounter with in-form South Korean Oh Sang Eun, losing 11-7, 11-9, 11-13, 11-8, 11-9. Earlier the day, Oh, 28, had paired up with compatriot Lee Jung Woo Saturday afternoon to show exit to Chinese pair Wang Liqin and Chen Qi, the reigning Asian champions who partnered with each other for less than four months. It's the first time in the ten-year history of ITTF ProTour finals that three out of four events having seen non-Chinese paddlers make the finals. Also it's only the second finals where Chinese pairs failed to reach finals in both men's and women's doubles events of the table tennis finale. Last time the doubles finals seeing none of Chinese paddlers ran back to 2001 when Oh claimed the men's doubles championships together with retired South Korean strong-man Kim Taek Soo while Le Eun Sil and Ryu Ji Hae won the women's title. Liu Guoliang, head coach of Chinese men's national team, blamed a lack of international experience of China's young paddler for Saturday's defeats. "Chinese youngsters have been given less chances to play Europeans as well as other Asian paddlers on international stage, that's why they felt uncomfortable when facing foreign players like Oh Sang Eun," said Liu. "Other associations like South Korea and Germany have done great job on teenage players' development, and have harvested good results as many players of theirs make rapid progress with faster paces and excellent top-spin strokes. "On this part, Chinese table tennis just have a lot to improve on," added Liu. The 36-year-old Frenchman Jean Michel Saive, seeded 10th, continued his unstoppable performance on Saturday, made short work of fifth seed Adrian Crisan from Romania in straight sets, while other high-ranking seeds went away from scare. Olympic champion Ryu Seung Min from South Korea beat 15th seed Fedor Kuzmin of Russia 4-0, while newly crowned World Cup holder Timo Boll of Germany ruled out a late turnover from Hong Kong's Ko Lai Chak, overcoming the former Chinese national 11-6, 11-7, 11-8, 4-11, 7-11, 6-11, 11-3. Ma Long showed none of his talent in Saturday evening's match against Oh. The 17-year-old tried hard to launch a comeback run after opening the match with 2-0 down on sets, but failed to find effectual method in dealing with Oh's backhand returns and performed badly in close-to-table plays. Thanks to a backhanded return rolling over the net at the end of the third set, Ma was lucky to pull back one set on 13-11. And in the following one, Oh committed three errors to grant a 5-0 run from Ma, but soon overtook the lead 10-8 and never looked back. "The better player today wins the match, and I just played worse, " said Ma Long after the defeat. "The only regret for me is that I failed to take the chance in the second set when some short-range shots came my way." "Oh surely the better player than me. He covered nearly every centimeter of the court," added Ma, the only Chinese entering the ITTF season finale without using a wildcard. "I'm just a little bit nervous, but it's not the reason for my loss. I think the result is true to the real capability of Oh and me." Xinhua
China's sports system delivers, but at a cost (2008-01-02)China's women clinch 16th world table tennis title (2006-04-30)World No. 1 Zhang Yining left as sole Chinese in ProTour finals (2005-12-14)Olympic champion leads dominant Chinese squad into table tennis worlds (2005-04-29)China's Zhang Yining Wins Table Tennis (2004-08-22)
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