Schlager Wins Men's Singles, Chinese Take Four Golds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, May 26, 2003

Schlager Wins Men's Singles, Chinese Take Four Golds

Austrian Werner Schlager, ranked sixth in the world, beat South Korea's Joo Se Hyuk 4-2 in the men's singles final of the world table tennis championships Sunday in Paris. Schlager downed the tenacious South Korean defender-cum-attacker 11-9, 11-6, 6-11, 12-10, 8-11, 12-10.

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Austrian Werner Schlager beat South Korea's Joo Se Hyuk 4-2 in the men's singles final of the world table tennis championships Sunday in Paris.

Schlager, ranked sixth in the world, downed the tenacious South Korean defender-cum-attacker 11-9, 11-6, 6-11, 12-10, 8-11, 12-10.

The 30-year-old chalked up Europe's first victory in the showcase event since Swedish legend Jan-Ove Waldner triumphed in 1997. He was the first ever world men's singles champion for his country.

Joo, world No. 61, was the first defensive player to make it to the world championship final in half century. He had beaten world number five Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei, world number two MaLin of China and Greek attacker Kalinikos Kreanga to make this far.

Chinese Kong Linghui, 2000 Olympic champion and 1995 world champion, who lost to Schlager in the seven-set semifinal, had to share the third place with Greek Kalinikos Kreanga.

China walked away with four gold medals with world second-ranked Wang Nan winning women's singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

China's Olympic and defending world champions Wang Liqin and Yan Sen grabbed the men's doubles top honor.

Li Furong, deputy director of the State Sports General Administration expressed satisfaction with the Chinese team's performance, but said that Chinese men players should make more efforts to regain the single's title at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

He said that generally speaking, both Chinese men and women players performed very well in all five events. They did very well technically, tactically and mentally. Especially the women players, who suffered severe defeats at last year's Asian Games. The men's team, despite not advancing to the final in the singles event, also performed well.

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