Chinese team ready for the World Championship after training camp at Vienna – Table tennis update
The Chinese coaching week for the GAC Group World Championship ended on May 4, at Vienna, Austria. The team will be leaving today for Rotterdam, Netherlands for the mega event.
The Chinese team is fully prepared to prove their dominancy in the sport in the forthcoming championship.
The world’s top-ranked team left for the Werner Schlager Academy on April 29, from Beijing. The all-conquering team did intense training at the Academy that is named after an Austrian player, Werner Schlager. The academy was constructed in 2003 by the former
world champion. The vicinity offers facilities like spacious training venues, rehabilitation centres and leisure activities for the players.
The Chinese players will be defending their titles in all five categories of the 51st World Championships. The Chinese have been dominating the World Championship over the last decade. The squad had a practice session of serve, receive and rally
on the last day of the training camp. The camp was headed by coach, Liu Guoliang, for the Men's squad and s**+ Zhihao, the head coach of the Women's team.
Top ranked players like Li Xiaoxia focused on having multi-ball training, whereas Guo Yue concentrated on practicing long rallies.
World Number one, Wang Hao trained to improve his counter-attack skills. Liu Guoliang thinks that the Men's individual title is the most prestigious one of the mega event. A potential threat for the Chinese men will come from Timo Boll of Germany, Vladimir
Samsonov of Belarus, Japanese Jun Mizutani and Joo Se-Hyuk of South Korea.
Liu hailed the Werner Schlager Academy, as ‘the best table tennis training base in Europe’.
Women players, on the other hand, will be up against the top Asian players. Last year, the Singaporean team emerged as the surprise winner of the World Team Championship. Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong are also expected to post a tough challenge to the
Chinese in the championship.
Teams from Austrian and Romania also underwent training at the academy for event. With the tournament set to begin on May 8, a lot can be expected on the table as the best in the world will step out to prove their skills.
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