Top-seeded Chinese pair Tian Jia and Wang Jie defeated Swiss duo Simone Kuhn and Lea Schwar in straight sets on the opening day of the Beijing beach volleyball tournament on Saturday.
Tian/Wang took a quick 7-1 lead with powerful serves in the opening tie. The Swiss duo, who struggled hard to score, found themselves hopeless to catch up, losing 21-12 in 19 minutes.
Trailing 3-7 on the second set, Tian/Wang steadied their nerves to level the score 11-all. They never gave their opponents any chance to exceed and dominated the game until 20-18.
Wang, 24, wounded up China's win 21-18 with a power spike which the Swiss duo failed to handle.
Tian/Wang won three Swatch FIVB World Tour gold medals, including two in 2006 at Klagenfurt and Warsaw, and one in 2007 in Shanghai.
Chinese head coach Miao Zhihong had said that they didn't set any target for the Olympics and the important thing was how the players could give full play to their abilities and techniques.
China is sending three beach volleyball pairs - Xu Linyin/Wu Penggen for the men's game and Tian Jia/Wang Jie and Xue Chen/Zhang Xi at the Beijing Olympics.
Tian/Wang and Xu/Wu were top seeds in the preliminary round as they finished second and fifth respectively on the Olympic qualification ranking, according to regulations of the International Volleyball Federation.
Being paired with Wang Fei, Tian finished ninth in Athens, the best result the Chinese ever scored at Olympic Summer Games.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)