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46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

USA Women Defeat Israel, Move to Knock-out Stage for First Division

USA Women vs. Israel, 10:00 AM April 24
What was most interesting about this match is that USA had a group of about 100 local Japanese elementary school children cheering for them! Throughout the match the children chanted "USA! USA! USA!" and other chants. It was all part of a "One School, One Country" program by local schools, where individual classes were assigned a county to cheer for. The children cheering for USA all had homemade paper USA flags, and waved them throughout the match during their chants.

Both teams had defeated Macao, so this match would decide who would advance to the knock-out stage for the first division. USA’s three players (Chang Gao Jun, Jasna Reed and Tawny Banh) seemingly had the advantage, with world rankings of 35, 125 and 144, respectively, while Israel’s three (Marina Kravchenku, Sarit Hosse and Iulya Dagtiar) had respective rankings of 75, 224 and 291.

Israel Ace Marina Kravchenku. Copyright 2001 by Tong Lee.

Jasna Reed (USA) vs. Marina Kravchenku (ISR)
If Jasna could pull off this minor upset, USA would be huge favorites in this match. Up 18-15 in the first, she fell behind 19-20 – but won in deuce, 23-21, with beautiful backhand loop/forehand loop-kill follow. In the second, she went up 9-2, and seemed to be coasting. But Kravchenku gradually pulled closer. At 13-9, USA called time-out, but afterwards, Jasna seemed to play worse, making a number of careless mistakes, especially blocking. Her 16-13 lead became 18-16, then she lieraly mishit the next five in a row to lose the game, 21-18. The Jasna of the first game and half would have won this game; but somehow, her timing now seemed to be off. Someone thought she was just nervous. Whatever it was, it continued in the third as Kravchenku ran away to win, 21-10, winning the last six in a row.

Chang Gao Jun (USA) vs. Iulya Dagtiar (ISR)
The only sure things in life are death, taxes and Gao winning most of her matches. Match to Gao, 10 & 17.

Tawny Banh (USA) vs. Sarit Hosse (ISR)
This was possibly the key match – if USA won, it would be very difficult for Israel to come back. Tawny was the aggressor throughout the match, looping forehands and hitting with her backhand pips. Attacking all out, she won the first 21-17. In the second, Tawny fell behind 13-7, 8-14 and 11-16. Then, still attacking constantly (and making a number of very nice backhand hits along with her continuous forehand looping), she came back to 17-all. She misses a backhand hit at 19-all, but deuces it with another backhand hit. At 20-all, she serve and looped two forehands to get the ad, and won it by backhand hitting in the serve, 22-20. Match to Tawny and USA, 17 & 20.

Chang Gao Jun (USA) vs. Marina Kravchenku (ISR)
Death and taxes may be sure things, according to the saying, but Kravchenku didn’t know the third part about Gao winning, and ran her off the table in the first game, 21-13. Throughout this game, she looped from both wings steadily, and picked her winners. She especially showed a nice backhand loop. However, in the next two games, Gao picked things up, got more and more aggressive, and ran away with both games to win the match (-13,9,15) and the team match for USA.

By winning this match, USA will next play Slovak (which finished third in their first-division round robin with Taiwan and Yugoslavia) in a playoff for the first division. The match will take place 3:00 PM today (April 24). Slovak’s top three ranked players are Eva Odorova (world #91), Valentinia Popova (98) and Zuzana Poliackova (146). (However, Iveta Klacanska, world #291, is listed as their #3.)

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