China's table tennis Olympians battled hard against their younger teammates who emerged as a potential threat on day two of the pre-Olympic warm-up competition in Wuxi.
The host nation put its Olympians to test by encouraging other national team members who did not make the Olympic team to upset the top stars in singles and team matches in east China's Wuxi. Just like in the forthcoming Beijing Olympics, the team competition involved three players playing four singles and one doubles matches.
The national team is so good that some of its less famous members, when at their best, may rival those at the top of the world ranking list and will hopefully become China's main force in the future.
"The Olympians are not a class high above the rest of the national team, so both winning and losing were possible for them in the warm-up competition," the women's head coach Shi Zhihao said. "Anyway, the warm-ups will let the Olympic team know if it is in excellent shape."
The women's Olympic trio of the Athens singles gold medallist Zhang Yining, world champion Guo Yue and veteran Wang Nan overpowered a dogged opponent team late Tuesday, with a hard-earned 3-1 victory.
Second-ranked Guo Yue suffered incisive attacks from fourth-ranked Guo Yan, trailing all the way to lose 3-0. "Guo was not at her best because she hasn't fully recovered her strength after getting a fever days ago," Shi said after the match.
Fast-attacking Zhang then finished off 22nd-ranked Fan Ying 3-1 and paired with Wang to down a younger pair of Guo Yan and 13th-ranked Cao Zhen 3-1. Zhang and Wang were the Athens doubles winner.
Wang, the sport's most decorated players with 23 world titles, sealed the Olympians' success by brushing aside an exhausted Fan 3-2. The 30-year-old veteran believes winning an Olympic gold is a perfect way to complete her career.
Earlier in the day, the women's Olympic team was made to sweat for its 3-2 victory over a younger team featuring 18th-ranked Liu Shiwen and 31st-ranked Ding Ning.
Zhang fought hard to beat the 17-year-old Liu 3-2 and the 18-year-old Ding crushed both grand slam veteran Wang and Guo Yue 3-1.
Ding won the singles title at the Chinese City Games last year after knocking out Guo 4-1 in the semifinals and beating Li Xiaoxia 4-2 in the final.
The rising star told reporters this May that her dream was winning an Olympic gold "as early as possible".
In the men's game, teenage prodigy Ma Long demolished Olympian Ma Lin 4-2 in the singles competition late Tuesday, after downing triple world champion Wang Liqin 3-2 in Monday's team event.
Veteran Wan Liqin also had a tough time against 82nd-ranked Xu Hui in the afternoon when the 30-year-old rallied from three sets down to win 7-4.
Liu Guoliang, head coach of the men's team, said Wang's performance was "in a mess" in the first half of the match but managed to catch up after making some adjustment.
"This was the most valuable match for Wang here in Wuxi because he could find his problems and overcome the difficulty in time, which will boost his confidence ahead of the Olympic Games," Liu said.
"At the Olympics, if Wang can perform as he did in the latter half of the match today, he will be the most powerful one."
(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2008)