Rule changes test Chinese paddlers in Athens
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-07-29 15:02

Chinese table tennis players face a real test of their flair and form when they meet challenges from the first introduced qualification system and rule alterations to Olympic pingpong games.

China, long acclaimed the "kingdom of table tennis" where the sport is hailed as national game, have bagged all of the four gold medals of table tennis in Barcelona in 1996, repeated the sweep in the Sydney Olympics four years ago and let slip only three golds in the only two former Games since the sport was introduced to Olympics in 1988.

The world table tennis superpower loves to embrace challenges from rest of the world, but the rules changes to the Athens Olympic Games is not cheerful.

Since the knock-out system will be used in the Olympics there instead of group stage, top Chinese Ma Lin, Wang Nan and their teammates will never take their eyes off when heading for another Olympic sweep.

Limits in maximum number of qualified players for each NOC and rule alterations, such as the large ball, 11 points scoring and all-to-see service rule, also bother the ambitious Chinese team.

Cai Zhenhua, head coach of Chinese national team, thus understated that his star-packed squad could only ensure two gold medals out of four, despite a string of clean sweeps by Chinese paddlers in recent international events.

"Everything is possible in the Olympic Games, and no one has confidence of a hundred percent," said Cai, citing South Korea, DPR Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Singapore and European players as China's main contenders.

He predicted that the gold for men's singles would be the hardest to win, while that for women's singles would be the easiest comparatively.

Ma Lin, temporarily top-ranked Wang Liqin, the Olympic doubles champion in Sydney, and Wang Hao, a rising star with unique skill,will face tough rivals such as German talent Timo Boll, Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei and world champion Werner Schlager in men'ssingles, while Chinese pairs of Ma Lin/Chen Qi and Wang Hao/Kong Linghui are mainly challenged by European opponents.

As their male counterparts are anguished in a big slumping, Chinese women's table tennis stars maintain a firm grip in their specialty, keeping as unbeatable in the majority of international events' women's singles and doubles in two years.

Although displaced at the top of the rankings by Zhang Yining, experienced Wang Nan, the reigning world and Olympic women's singles champion, is still the best shot of Chinese Olympic campaign, whose quest of the gold in Athens will be supported by Zhang, Busan Asian Games champion in 2002, and Niu Jianfeng, pro tour finals champion in 2003 who was ranked 3rd in the world.

Though China have so abundant a pack of talents to make its team, they could no longer use the tactics of piling hands in games, as the maximum number of athletes per NOC has been limited to 3 men and 3 women in the individual events and a maximum of 2 men's pairs and 2 women's pairs in the doubles event with the qualification system for the Athens Games, starting August 13.

And it's thoroughly harder in doubles' titles contention for China who used to make all Chinese finals in last two editions' Olympic doubles events to ensure the sweep, as two double pairs from the same NOC are ruled to meet before finals under the newly introduced competition system of these pairs being drawn on the same half of the draw.

The rule changes, such as the reduction from 21 to 11 point sets, the all-to-see service rule and the introduction of a biggerball, which some feel have been specifically designed to shackle China's superiority, will hit China, the strongest in the world, same as in major event in past three years under the altered rules.

Last year's world championships in Paris, won by Austrian Schlager, marked the downfall of China when its players failed to reach the semi-finals in the most coveted men's singles, and is regarded as an example of the effect the rule alterations have hadon the Chinese game, while top Chinese Ma Lin and Wang Hao's service were repeatedly ruled illegal in this year's Doha team worlds in March.