Over 650 Players Compete in 47th Table Tennis Worlds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Over 650 Players Compete in 47th Table Tennis Worlds

Over 650 players from 160 countries and regions will compete for five singles and doubles titles at the 47th table tennis world championships which opened on Monday evening.

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Over 650 players from 160 countries and regions will compete for five singles and doubles titles at the 47th table tennis world championships which opened on Monday evening.

The opening day's action consisted of a hectic series of 600 qualifiers for the singles which kick off for real on Wednesday, and doubles - spread out over 29 tables.

Among the early starters to register a win were Chinese Taipei's Sun Wenwei and Su Hsien, who recorded an 11-9, 11-8, 11-5 success over the Israeli duo Kfir Siberrman and Shen Dekel in the mixed doubles.

China had carried out a clean sweep of gold medals at Osaka in 2001 and Eindhoven two years before.

Only Swedish table tennis legend Jan-Ove Waldner prevented the same thing happening in Manchester in 1997.

The threats to China also come from German Timmo Boll who arrived here as world number one, the recently crowned European champion Vladamir Samsonov from Belarus.

Organisers report 72,000 of the 80,000 tickets have been sold.

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