By Xinhua
Yangzhou (China) : China beat Japan to capture the men’s team title at the Asian table tennis championships here early Thursday, shortly after the women had beaten Singapore in the finals.
It was not until after midnight (local time) that the Chinese trio of Wang Hao, Ma Long and Chen Qi edged out their young rivals 3-0, putting an end to Japan’s surprise ascent.
To attract Chinese television viewers, the men’s team final kicked off shortly after the women’s team final concluded late Wednesday with China’s victory over Singapore.
The Japanese coach Yoshihito Miyazaki appeared to be trying to play down the defeat and said “the time was too late for us to bring our strength into full play as we usually go to bed early”.
Miyazaki’s Chinese counterpart Liu Guoliang admitted that the rising Japanese stars had an advantage over their peers in China and were likely to become “important rivals” to Chinese players in the 2012 Olympic Games.
Liu’s remarks followed the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) technical committee chairman Yao Zhenxu’s warning that young Japanese players such as Jun Mizutani and Seiya Kishikawa were progressing fast in recent years, showing they were a force to be reckoned with.
Japan had put in a strong performance from the start of the championships with a series of stunning 3-0 wins over Cambodia, Thailand and second seed South Korea.
In the final, the first match unexpectedly turned out a thrilling and lengthy encounter, in which 60th-ranked Kaii Yoshida’s spirited challenge unsettled world number two Wang Hao and lured him into making errors frequently.
Cheered on by a home crowd of 1,000, Wang rallied to win the deciding fifth set though the score was almost even throughout 11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 7-11, 11-6.
Sixth-ranked Ma Long took the following match 11-9, 14-12, 11-6 against 58th ranked Mizutani.
The 18-year-old Japanese high school student had helped his team reach the final by crushing much higher-ranked Chiang Peng-Lung and Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei earlier in the day.
The third battle between eighth-ranked Chen Qi and 101st-ranked 16-year-old Kenta Matsudaira proved a lopsided affair, with the Chinese winning 11-7, 11-3, 11-9.