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World Team Table Tennis Championships in Guangzhou, China

Top Seeds Reach Final

The top two seeds in the women’s event reached the final of the Evergrande World Team Championships in Guangzhou following penultimate round victories on Friday 29th February 2008; number one seeds China beat Hong Kong China whilst Singapore overcame Japan.

Meanwhile, in the Men’s Team event China, Hong Kong China, Japan and Korea booked their places in the semi-final stage.

In the female competition both China and Singapore recorded three-nil victories, the former beating Hong Kong China, the latter Japan. In the encounter between China and Hong Kong China, Guo Yue beat Jiang Huajun, Wang Nan overcame Tie Yana and Zhang Yining accounted for Lin Ling.

A fine performance by China but the team to rise to occasion was Singapore. Wang Yue Gu gave the south east Asian country the perfect start by beating Kasumi Ishikawa, somewhat of a surprise selection for Japan. The teenager celebrated her fifteenth birthday on 23rd February 2008, the day before tournament started and had only played in one match in Guangzhou prior to the semi-final duel. The reason for the selection no doubt being the fact that at the Hanoi Television sponsored Asian Cup in November 2007, Kasumi Ishikawa has sensationally gained third place and en route had beaten Wang Yue Gu.

In Guangzhou, Wang Yue Gu extracted revenge and set Singapore on the road to victory. Li Jia Wei followed suit by beating the hitherto unbeaten Sayaka Hirano with Feng Tianwei concluding proceedings by overcoming Ai Fukuhara.

Three-nil successes for China and Singapore in the Women’s Team event and it was the same for Japan and China in the counterpart male event, whilst for Hong Kong and Korea life was a little more testing.

Japan overcame Chinese Taipei with Jun Mizutani beating Chiang Peng-Lung, Kaii Yoshida ending the unbeaten run of Chuan Chih-Yuan and Kan Yo ending matters with victory over Wu Chih-Chih.

Similarly China was yet again irrepressible. Against the Czech Republic, Wang Liqin overcame Petr Korbel, Ma Lin accounted for Thomas Pavelka and Wang Hao beat Josef Simoncik.

Impressive performances whilst for Hong Kong China and Korea they were both impressive and very hard fought wins.

The man in form for Hong Kong China was the man who thus far had not been in form. The enigmatic Li Ching beat both Andrei Filimon and Adrian Crisan in emphatic manner, having struggled in the first stage of the tournament to find his best form. The one further win for Hong Kong China came from Tang Peng against Constantin Cioti whilst for the Czech Republic Adrian Crisan defeated Ko Lai Chak.

Meanwhile, for Korea against Germany it was very much a team effort. Joo Se Hyuk lost the opening match to Jörg Rosskopf but that was the only Korean reverse; in the match that brought matters to an end he defeated Dimitrij Ovtcharov after Ryu Seung Min had also accounted for Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Lee Jung Woo had beaten Patrick Baum.

In the semi-finals China plays Hong Kong China whilst Korea meets Japan.