Defending champion China scored its fourth victory in a row after thumping Austria as Hong Kong, China eliminated Singapore at the worlds table tennis championships on Wednesday.
China hardly broke a sweat as Wang Liqin, Wang Hao and Ma Long trampled the Austrian trio of Bernhard Presslmayer, Robert Gardosand Daniel Habesohn without losing one game in the one-hour match.
Wang Liqin, defeated by 74-ranked Romanian Andrei Filimon on Monday, said he was still not in the best form despite the triumph over Croatian and Austrian opponents.
He admitted that the high expectation of home audience and media put himself under enormous pressure.
Liu Guoliang, head coach of the Chinese men's team, said he hoped the Chinese players could grow more mature through practice.
China has overpowered Belgium, Romania and Croatia in the firstthree rounds of competitions, during which South Korea, who finished runner-up at the last worlds, also got steam after cruised over Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Meanwhile, the match between Hong Kong, China and Singapore sawa clash of all-Chinese players with both regiments forming strong line-ups in the gruelling encounter.
Tang Peng of Hong Kong, China fought a five-set nail-biting game with former Chinese player Yang Zi, prevailing 3-2. Veteran Li Jing, who lost two points to Denmark on Tuesday, failed to pullhimself together and lost 3-1 to 10th-ranked Gao Ning.
Chen Jianghua, head coach of the Hong Kong team attributed Chen's twice defeat to his unstable psychological condition.
"There are so many of fans of Chen here in Chinese mainland, who was anxious to demonstrate himself well," Chen said after thematch which he termed as a "win-or-die" battle.
Following at heels of Ko Lai Chak's 3-0 win, Tang foiled Singapore's title-chasing attempt by beating Gao 3-1 and wounded up the showdown 3-1.
In other matches, Belarus beat Denmark 3-1, Spain dumped Greece by the same score, Italy overcame Croatia 3-2 and Belgium succumbed to Romania 0-3.
The drippy weather of southern Chinese city of Guangzhou hardly had a toll on a large number of audience who queued up at the entry to the city stadium long before the matches kicked off in the morning.
Twenty-four countries and regions are vying in four groups in championships division in the week-long tournament. The top-placed squads in each group earn the berths for the quarter-finals, and the squads ranking second and third have to strive for the remaining post in the last eight.
Source: Xinhua
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