Liu Qualifies for Sydney Olympic Games

Chinese Liu Guozheng played some of his best table tennis ever when he won the men's singles' title and qualified for the Sydney Olympics at the 2000 Olympics Table Tennis Asian Qualifying Tournament in Hong Kong Thursday.

In the women's singles, the 20-year-old Chinese Sun Jin, ranked fourth in the world, clinched the title with seven straight wins against no loss. She is the only unbeaten player in the tournament. According to the allocation from the ITTF, 11 players in men's and women's singles respectively will be selected through qualification systems from Asia. Among them, seven best players will be selected based on their final positions in this qualifying tournament.

In the men's singles, the qualifiers are Liu Guozheng of China, South Koreans Lee Chul Seung and Yoo Seung Min, Japanese Tasaki Yoshio, Chang Yuan Su of Chinese Taipei, Cheung Yuk and Leung Chu Yan both from Hong Kong, China.

Sun Jin of China, Jing Jun Hong and Li Jia Wei both from Singapore, Lee Eun Sil of South Korea, Sakata Rinko of Japan, Xu Jing of Chinese Taipei and Song Sh Sim of Hong Kong, China are the women's qualifiers.

Baboor Chetan of India, Suseno Anton of Indonesia, Al Hammandi Hamad of Qatar, Ehteshamzadeh of Iran are the men's singles qualifiers of regional representations, who are the best player from each of the regions of West Asia, West Central Asia, South East Asia, and South Central Asia.


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