Chen Weixing, the Austrian fighter

Chen Weixing plays for Austria. He is currently placed at the seventeenth spot in the ITTF Men’s World Table Tennis rankings. However, he was holding the ninth place from March 2006 to November 2006. He had slipped somewhat lately. Chen Weixing came into the international arena in 1996, when he reached the ITTF Pro Tour Men’s Doubles event quarterfinals in 1996, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He reached the quarterfinals in the singles event in the ITTF Pro Tour in 2001, held at Chatham, England and again in 2002 in Cairo, Egypt. His next significant achievements came, when he finished in the last 4 in the singles events in the 2004 ITTF Pro Tour in Warsaw, Poland and in Aarhus, Denmark. Again, he reached the semifinals in the men’s singles events of the 2006 Pro Tour in Kuwait City, Kuwait and in Jeonju, Korea. He was also the quarterfinalist in the 2006 ITTF Pro Tour Men’s Singles events in Santiago, Chile, in Singapore, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Bayreuth, Germany. He also reached the quarterfinals in the singles event in the 2003 World Championships in Paris, France.

One important match in the table tennis career of Chen Weixing was when he reached the finals of the Men’s singles event at the TMS Chinese Taipei Open in June 2005. He was facing Lee Jung Woo of Korea in the finals. They had met earlier in the Volkswagen Korea Open a week earlier, when Lee Jung Woo triumphed over Chen Weixing in a 5-game match in the round of 16. Lee Jung Woo won the first game in style at 11-4, boosted by the memories of his recent victory. However, Chen Weixing used his experience and fighting skills to take the second game 13-11. In the third game, both the players matched points and the scores were level at 9-all. Lee Jung Woo used his forehand topspin to take the game 11-9. The fourth game also saw them level at 6-all but Lee Jung Woo went forward in a frantic pace to win the game 11-7. In the fifth game, Yoo Nam Kyu, coach of Lee Jung Woo, started advising him closely. Chen Weixing had nobody to advice him. Lee started backhand spinning and drop shots effectively to overcome Chen Weixing 11-3 and take the title. Chen Weixing was a disappointed man.

However, the memorable moment in the career of Chen Weixing was when he defeated Wang Liqin in the quarterfinals at the ITTF Pro Tour Kuwait Open in February 2006 in a grueling 7-game match. At the end of the sixth game, both were level at 3-all. In the vital seventh game, Wang Liqin led 5-3. However, Chen Weixing exploded with his powerful forehand topspin strokes, never giving a chance to Wang Liqin to come back into the game. He had triumphed over the world number one, a great moment of satisfaction for him, even though, he went down to another Chinese, Chen Qi, in the semifinals.