August 13, 2008
The Chinese met expectations and dominated the openings of Olympic team table tennis matches Wednesday.  The lift of the home crowd was more than enough to help them pull through when they were behind.

The women’s team smashed Croatia 3-0 in the best-of-five format containing four singles and a doubles.  The Chinese allowed only one game in the morning session and stomped on the Dominican Republic later the same day 3-0.

Zhang Yining said the following after her matches: “I don’t differentiate between strong and weak opponents. I play each game like it’s a final.” Zhang won gold in singles and doubles in Athens on 2004. “If you’re not prepared and ready for a challenge you’ll find yourself in a bad situation.”

The Chinese men on the other hand had some troubles against Greece, losing two games as they went on to win 3-0.

“Definitely there was some pressure,” said the world’s number one ranked player Wang Hao. But he said the cheering home crowd helped boost the team’s performance. “We’re on the home court so everyone wants us to get a good result.”

Table tennis is the national sport of China which imposes fierce expectations of winning gold. So far the expectations have been met.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.