China has cut short the 16-athlete list registered to the International Table Tennis Federations (ITTF) for the forthcoming world team championships at Bremen, Germany to 10 members.

According to a statement released Thursday by the nation's governing body of the sport, Wang Hao, singles silver medallist in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, led the men's squad including reigning world champion Wang Liqin and triple World Cup holder Ma Lin.

Newcomers Chen Qi will play his first team worlds as China vie for their 15th championship of Swaythling Cup, while teenager Ma Long edged higher-ranked Hao Shuai for the last berth.

Zhang Yining, grand slam winner of Olympics, world championships and World Cup, will team up with Wang Nan, Guo Yue, Guo Yan and Li Xiaoxia in the women's team event after the Chinese paddlers had lifted the Corbillon Cup for 15 times.

Chen Qi, 22, harshly threatened his position in China's national team after losing temper at the Asian Cup ten days ago.

But the Olympic doubles champion was yet given a chance of making up for his mistakes by being included in the squad for the Bremen worlds, slated April 24 to May 1.

After his defeat at the hands of compatriot Wang Hao in the men' s singles final in Japan on March 5, Chen, a native from Jiangsu province, a most economic developed area in East China, flung the ball to the ground and booted a chair into the air.

He was ruled to make a televised apology to the Chinese nation last week, punished to turn over 10 percent of his earnings this year to the authorities, but escaped a ban from international competitions with the national side.

"From the national team's point of view, the main point of the punishment is to help educate the youngster, so we prefer to keep Chen Qi in the squad for world championships and hope that he will do some soul searching and accept lessons while working hard for good scores and achievements," said Cai Zhenhua, director of China' s table tennis and badminton administrative center.

"The list might be changed again before April 20 even if we had sent it over to the world governing body ITTF. We have to aware of occasions that some key members might get injury during practice," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2006)