The upcoming World Table Tennis Team Championships will be an important testing ground for a mixed Chinese team, with both veterans and young guns, to prep its 2008 Beijing Olympic potential squad.

"Since the Team Championships is one of the most valuable opportunity for the team to practice on the road to Beijing 2008 Games, testing the lineup has the same importance as achieving good results," said Cai Zhenhua, director of China's Table Tennis and Badminton Administrative Centre and former head coach of the team.

"Therefore, we have offered more chances for young paddlers."

As released by coaches last month, the entry list of the men's team for the worlds, which open at German's Bremen next Monday, includes world champion Wang Liqin, Olympic doubles champion Ma Lin, Olympic silver medallist Wang Hao, and rising stars Chen Qi and Ma Long.

On the women's side, multiple-world champion Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and 2004 world tournament winner Guo Yue will help the country make a run at the trophy, aided by two young players Guo Yan and Li Xiaoxia.

In order to prepare for the event, the men's and women's teams have been through training camps in Xiamen and Zhengding respectively last month and both vowed to achieve the best results at the team's worlds with strong team power.

"Since it is the team competition, we strengthened the confrontation between the players themselves this time to raise the overall strength," Liu said. "We hope the five players will help each other to form a united force."

Players in form

Through a series of systematic training and a selection tournament, all 10 of the main-force members are ready to continue representing China at the table tennis world championships.

The team veterans have honed their competitive forms while the younger players are also making efforts to adapt themselves to the tough atmosphere of high-profile matches.

"During the training and selection circle matches, Wang Liqin and Ma Lin are in their normal form before important matches," Liu said. "Since Chen and Ma Long are a little bit nervous at present, we will try to calm them down and help them at ease."

Wang Liqin also promised to bring the trophy back home.

"We have got good preparation for tough matches and I will turn the pressure to a kind of motivation," said the 27-year-old Wang. "Our whole team will work as a strong force to strive for the champion."

The women's team is also well prepared, led by its former leader Wang Nan, who is now the assistant coach of the team.

"Wang Nan has set a good example to the whole team since she kept training hard as both coach and player," head coach Shi commented.

"Although the young players Guo Yan and Li felt a little worried, we will help them to adjust to their best forms at the competitions."

This time at Bremen, the Chinese men's team will face tough opponent Sweden, which it has battled with over the men's team's Swaythling Cup for more than two decades. China and Sweden have been drawn in Group A. Also in the same group are European powerhouses Denmark and Romania.

Host Germany will face low-ranked Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Norway in Group C.

In the women's competitions, Chinese paddlers join Romania, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Serbia and India in the first group.

Each of the groups plays in a round-robin event with the top team from each group going into the quarterfinals.

(China Daily April 21, 2006)