Top seeds Li and Guo through first round at table tennis worlds
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The two Chinese top seeds at the women's singles tournament at the World Table Tennis Championships in Rotterdam eased through to the second round on Tuesday.
World number one Li Xiaoxia needed only eighteen minutes to crush Liu Hsing-Yin from Chinese Taipei 11-4, 11-2, 11-2, 11-7, while second seeded Guo Yan beat Katalina Gatinska from Bulgaria 11-6, 11-6, 11-3, 11-5.
Li Xiaoxia did not play in the main hall, but in the second hall, where a lot of people watched her game. "The competition hall was too crowded and noisy, so I had to warn myself not to be distracted," she said. "I performed normally and I think my rival could have played better."
Ding Ning defeated He Sirin from Turkey in four games with 11-8, 11-8, 11-8, 11-8. Guo Yue, the 2007 world champion, defeated Dutch player Britt Eerland 11-6, 11-8, 11-5, 11-7.
"Maybe I had a little chance to win a game," Eerland said. "I was able to play my game and that makes me happy. I did what I had to do and I enjoyed it. In the end of the match she was playing faster and faster and I could not cope with that. Before the match I already knew she was better. She's a former world champion, that says enough."
Another Dutch women with Chinese origin did qualify for the next round. Li Jiao, number 13, beat Germany's Sabine Winter 11-3, 11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 6-11, 11-6.
"After I went 3-0 ahead, I became too careful," Li said. "Then I realized that she's the one with a problem, not me. From that moment on I started playing better. I never stopped believing in a victory."
On Thursday, Li Jiao might face top seed Li Xiaoxia in the fourth round. "I am not thinking of Thursday, I am just focusing on tomorrow," she reacted. "I don't think it is bad to play a difficult match, because I became more sharp."
Other Chinese contestants all went through. Wu Yang defeated Polina Mikhaylova from Russia 11-8, 11-2, 11-5, 11-6. Fan Ying beat Yana Noskova from Russia 13-11, 11-3, 11-8, 11-5 and Liu Shiwen crushed Elena Timina of the Netherlands 11-4, 11-5, 11-8, 11-5.
"She simply was too good," Timina said. Feng Tianwei from Singapore was too strong for Bernadette Szocs in a score of 9-11, 11-8, 12-10, 8-11, 11-3, 11-4.
