Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 23, 2004
Teams for world table tennis championships named
World top-ranked Ma Lin and multi-Olympic gold medalist Wang Nan will spearhead China's assaults at the world team table tennis championships slated for March 1-7 in Qatar, China head coach Cai Zhenhua announced Sunday afternoon in Beijing.
World top-ranked Ma Lin and multi-Olympic gold medalist Wang Nan will spearhead China's assaults at the world team table tennis championships slated for March 1-7 in Qatar, China head coach Cai Zhenhua announced Sunday afternoon in Beijing.
Cai named World Cup holder Ma Lin, world second-ranked Wang Liqin, No. 12 and Sydney Olympic champion Kong Linghui, No. 3 Wang Hao and No. 9 Liu Guozheng in the men's team and filled the women's five slots with world No. 2 Wang Nan, No. 1 Zhang Yining, No. 3 Niu Jianfeng, No. 8 Li Ju and No. 5 Guo Yue.
Cai dropped upstart Chen Qi in the last minute and included struggling Liu Guozheng instead, saying Liu was known for tough nerves and had "made a great contribution" to Chinese table tennis.
Chen jumped from nobody to world No. 6 in less than six months and is tipped to be a hopeful for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Liu, China's savior in its five-game encounter with South Koreain last team championships, has been battling a bad form and poor health.
The Chinese men are pitted against South Korea, Austria, France,Japan and Italy in Group A in the men's championship division. Group B, the only other championship group, include Chinese Taipei,Sweden, Germany, Hong Kong of China, Russia and Belgium.
Only the top two finishers in championship division group have chance for gold.
Liu Guoliang, the men's head coach, rates South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Austria and Sweden as China's major rivals and Lu Yuansheng, the women's head coach, predicts that threats to his team, if any, might come from South Korea.
Although the last time China lost women's world team crown was 1991, the country's dominance in the women's sport was questioned in 2002 when the DPR Korean team snatched the Asian Games title away from China.