Double crown for China

DOHA, MAY 6. China completed a rare double with a 3-0 win over Chinese Taipei in the men's team event final of the Asian table tennis championship here on Saturday.

On Friday, the women had posted a 3-0 win over the same opponent.

The Taipei men's team, unlike the women's team, did better and managed to take one game. The contest was much closer than the final margin shows, but the Chinese team with some extra efforts took the game away from Taipei.

Taipei's World No. 19 Chiang Peng Lung clashed with top-ranked Wang Ling in the first singles. Wang's powerpacked play was too much for his opponent. The little flourish that came in the second game came too late as Wang by then was in complete control.

However the contest of the evening was between World No. 5 Ma Lin and the 38th-ranked Chuan Chi-Yuan of Taipei. Ma Lin trailed 0-5 in the first game before taking charge. Once Ma closed in at 7-8, the contest was open.

Chuan came up with dazzling winners on the forehand and used the third ball attack to good effect. Down 17-19, Ma unleashed two blistering forehand drives and closed out the game with a backhand jab.

Chuan down 0-5 in the second game made no attempt to get at Ma Lin. China fielded Yan San for the out of sorts Liu Guozheng and got the third point with a hard-fought three game- win over Chang Yuan Su.

Yan opened out to take a 15-10 lead in the first game and held on to win. Chang played aggressively in the second game even finding winners in the third ball attack. The lead of 5-0 enhabled him to pin Yan with a mixture of loop drives and backhand counters. Chang raised a big cheer when he took the second game.

The decider turned out to be a battle of nerves. Chang was a little tense with a victory just in sight. But Yan slowly came into his own and attacked with all his might to hold the little edge midway through from 15-15, Yan raced away to a deserving win.

In the men's section, India finished sixth after losing 0-3 to Hong Kong. India which lost to China in the quarterfinals on Thursday, failed to put up a fight and lost all the matches tamely.

Chetan Baboor, who came up with a fighting display against China, failed to keep up the momentum as he went down 14- 21, 17-21 to Chig Ug Tak of Chinese Taipei.

The results:

Men: final: China bt Chinese Taipei 3-0. Earlier results: China bt South Korea 3-1; Hong Kong bt India 3-0.

Women: final: China bt Taipei 3-0. Earlier results: China bt South Korea 3-0; India bt Kazakhstan 3-0.

Final placings: Men: 1. China, 2. Chinese Taipei, 3. Korea & Japan, 5. Hong Kong, 6. India, 7. Singapore, 8. Qatar.

Women: 1. China, 2. Chinese Taipei, 3. Korea & Hong Kong, 5. Japan, 6. Singapore, 7. Thailand, 8. Malaysia, 9. India. - PTI

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