2/27/2008        Evergrande Real Estate 2008 World Team Table Tennis Championships

Tension filled the air on the evening of Wednesday 27th February 2008 in the Guangzhou Gymnasium as teams battled for quarter-final places in the Women’s Team event at the Evergrande World Team Championships.

Group winners – China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan – all received a direct entry to the quarter-finals; for the teams finishing the first stage of proceedings in second and third places in their respective groups, first round duels were the order of proceedings.
Eight teams, four matches, a quarter-final place the prize.

The stakes were high as was the tension with every contest going the full five match distance.

Winners
At the end of the evening it was Romania, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary who celebrated; for Germany, the United States, Korea and Croatia, a final place outside the top eight would be their lot.

Star
Eighteen year old Elizabeta Samara was the star of the show for Romania; she beat both Elke Wosik and Wu Jiaduo in the duel against Germany but the heroine was sixteen year old Cristina Hirici. In the crucial third match of the duel she overcame Amelie Solja to give her team a one match advantage.

The two German wins came from Wu Jiaduo and Elke Wosik against Daniela Dodean.

Li Qiangbing
A fine performance by Elizabeta Samara whilst for Austria the player to assume centre stage was Li Qianbing; she overcame both Wang Chen and Gao Jun to provide the platform for victory with Liu Jia adding the one further win when accounting for Wang Chen.

For the United States the wins came from Gao Jun against Liu Jia and from Li Nan in opposition to Veronika Heine.

Team Effort
Meanwhile, for Hungary against Croatia it was very much a team effort. Georgina Pota and Krisztina Toth both beat Cornelia Vaida whilst Petra Lovas overcame Sandra Paovic.

Success for Croatia came in the guise of Tamara Boros who beat Georgina Pota in the opening duel by the narrowest of five game margins before overcoming Krisztina Toth in the four match of the contest.

Elena Timina
However, if you were seeking a heroine late in the evening of the fourth day of play, then the name was Elena Timina.

She fought tooth and nail against Lee Eun Hee only to lose in four games but using her vast experience to the full and testing the patience of Dang Ye Seo she reversed the score line to bring matters level and set the scene for Li Jiao to face Kwak Bang Bang.

Elena Timina finished prone on her back having completed a reverse somersault in celebration!

Hard Fought
In a hard fought duel Li Jiao prevailed having earlier beaten Dang Ye Seo in the opening encounter; the one further Korean win came from Kwak Bang Bang in the third match of the duel over Li Jie.

Quarter-Finals
At the quarter-final stage China plays Romania, Hong Kong meets Austria, Japan confronts Hungary and Singapore faces the Netherlands.