China reign supreme at World TT

Dortmund (Germany), April 2 (IANS) The Chinese teams lived up to expectations by winning the men's and women's title at the World Team Table Tennis Championships here.

The Chinese men defeated Germany 3-1 Sunday.

In front of 11,000 spectators in the Westfalenhalle, Zhang Jike won the first match against German No. 1 Timo Boll 3-2.

World No. 1 Ma Long was too strong for Dimitrij Ovtcharov (3-0) and Wang Hao beat Patrick Baum 3-1.

"If you look at every game, they did give us strong pressure," said Chinese coach Liu Guoliang, who compared the victory to the 3-1 win two years ago in Moscow.

"Actually I don't think the gap became bigger in the last two years. They gave us so much pressure in Moscowm, so we had to prepare better and we did, which resulted in this victory."

China grabbed their sixth world title in a row and their 18th in total. The bronze medals went to South Korea and Japan.

The Chinese women took revenge of their defeat to Singapore in the 2010 edition, beating reigning champions 3-0. Hong Kong and South Korea received the bronze medals, Xinhua reports.

China grabbed its 18th women's world title and has now won in nine out of the last 10 editions.

World No. 1 Ding Ning beat Singapore's Feng Tianwei 3-1. Li Xiaoxia defeated Wang Yuegu 3-1 and Guo Yue posted a 3-0 win over Li Jiawei.

"I am happy with the performance of all my team," China women coach Shi Zhihao said.

"All my five members, although not all of them, played a lot. If I have to mention one, I will have to name Ding Ning. She has really grown up. However, we have to focus on building the whole team, not on one person."