China are expected to make a clean sweep at the upcoming world team table tennis championships as the country's best players will show up before the Beijing Olympics.
"The Chinese team will try its best to put in its best performance," said the Chinese team leader Huang Biao.
China's men's line-up features Ma Lin, Wang Liqin and Wang Hao,who currently hold the top three places in the men's world rankings. The Chinese women players are the world's top five, including Zhang Yining, Wang Nan and Guo Yan.
"Only a few foreign players are capable of posing threats to us," said Huang.
Sources close to the Chinese team also disclosed that the team has started training in Guangzhou since last month as China considers the championships as a practise run for the Beijing Olympics.
Strong teams from Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan see the Guangzhou competition the same way, but they do not seem to be strong enough to beat China's top-ranked stars.
"We would try to win as many matches as possible in Guangzhou, but our team would come mainly to warm up for the Olympic Games in summer," said the Hong Kong team coach Chan Kong-wah.
Neither South Korea's Ryu Seung Min, the Olympic singles gold medalist, nor Singapore's Li Jiawei, who beat Wang Nan at Athens, has so far talked in public about winning a title in Guangzhou.
Analysts said China's three top-ranked men players would show up in the Beijing Olympics, along with women players Zhang Yining and Guo Yue.
But it remains uncertain whether 12-year veteran Wang Nan or the rising star Li Xiaoxia will be the third women player to secure a ticket to the Games. The result is expected to come out after the Guangzhou championships, they said.
Officials with China's sports authorities played down previous media reports that they had decided to let Wang take part in the preliminary matches of the Beijing Olympics.
"It is still possible that the list will be changed," said Liu Fengyan, director of the Chinese Table Tennis and Badminton Administrative Center.
Source: Xinhua
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