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Tuesday, February 22, 2000, updated at 09:53(GMT+8) Sports China Keeps Clean Record in Table Tennis Worlds China stands as an insurmountable summit as its men's team crushed Canada and Yugoslavia with its women players routing Lithuania and Belarus. Liu Guozheng, the singles winner at the ITTF Pro Tour Finals last month, paced China to a 3-0 win over Canada, a replacement for Romania which withdrew because of financial reason. Liu, ranked 11th in the world, beat world No. 24 Johnny Huang 21-18, 21-10. Kong Linghui and Wang Liqin snatched the following two games easily. China then recorded its third straight win in two days, beating Yugoslavia 3-0. The Chinese women trio -- world No. 4 Sun Jin, world singles runner-up Zhang Yining and defensive player Wang Hui, blanked Lithuania in three to nil. Later, Chinese Wang Nan, Li Ju and Zhang Yining downed Belarus 3-0. "Our rivals fielded bench players," said Chinese head coach Cai Zhenhua. "We had an easy day today, but we won't tomorrow." The Chinese men's squad will take on Belgium and Austria on Monday. Belgium is led by former world No. 1 Jean-Michael Saive and Austria has Werner Schlager, a world championships bronze medallist and World Cup runner-up. The Chinese women face Sweden. Printer-friendly Version In This SectionCopyright by People's Daily Online, All rights reserved |
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