China Men's Singles Gold Campaign in Doubt

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, May 25, 2003

China Men's Singles Gold Campaign in Doubt

China's bid for the men's singles title was in doubt after two of their top players crashed out of the 47th world table tennis championships Saturday in Paris.

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China's bid for the men's singles title was in doubt after two of their top players crashed out of the 47th world table tennis championships Saturday in Paris.

South Korean Joo Se Hyuk chopped his way to the men's singles semifinals by beating Chinese Ma Lin 4-3, while Austrian Werner Schlager rallied to eliminate title-defending Wang Liqin of China with the same scoreline.

The 22-year-old South Korean, ranked 61st in the world, defended well and attacked aggressively, while second-ranked Ma Lin appeared short of ideas to break his solid defense and deadly forehand attacks.

Ma tried to variate his spins and played his speed game, managing to overcame the 11-13 first set loss to win the second and third set 12-10 and 11-8.

But Joo kept firmly to his defensive style and turned from defense to attack whenever possible, which proved to be very effective in frustrating Ma.

Joo held back Ma's winning momentum by taking the fourth set 11-9 before Ma resumed his lead by wining the fifth set 11-6.

But Joo's solid defense and efficient counter-attack helped him take the last two sets 11-8 and 11-9 and reach the last four at the cost of Ma, whom Joo maintained a perfect record over.

Joo admitted that his better record against Ma had given him confidence to reach at least the semifinals of the championships.

"When I saw the draw (against Ma), I thought I might be in the semifinals," he said.

Schlager, ranked sixth in the world, had seemed to be on the verge of crashing out after Wang led the sixth set 10-6 and the match 3-2.

But Schlager kept his composure and saved a string of match points to force Wang to a seventh and deciding set.

"I had better concentration at the last point," said Schlager. "The game was really tough, and I found he was a little shaking, so I came back.

"I just want to compose myself, because you can only play very good table tennis when you are cool," said Schlager, who made the semifinals of the championships for a second time.

After being forced to a 3-3 tie, Wang Liqin seemed to be short of ideas of how to deal with the resilient Austrian and lost the final set 5-11 and consequently the match.

"He sought to play safe in the sixth set when he led 10-6, " said Chinese head coach Cai Zhenhua.

"He was feeling growing pressure after losing the lead in sets."

"He didn't use his tactics properly and wasted four match points," Cai added.

After Ma and Wang went out, Olympic champion Kong Linhui was the last Chinese player to have reached the last four. He will meet Schlager with Joo taking on Kalinikos Kreanga of Greece.

Yao Zhenxu, chairman of the technical committee of the International Table Tennis Federation, suggested that Joo might bethe winner of the most-coveted men's singles title.

"It is hard to say who will win the title, but it is also very difficult for others to beat Joo," he said.

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