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46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

USA Women Make First Division by Defeating Slovak

After years in the wilderness, USA is back in the first division – at least the women. They did so by defeating Slovak in the knock-out playoff match for the first division. USA Women had finished first in their second division round robin; Slovak had finished third in theirs, and so had faced the challenge from USA.

How did USA do it?

Chang Gao Jun in action against Slovak. Copyright 2001 by Tong Lee.

Chang Gao Jun (USA) vs. Zuzana Poliackova (SVK)
The Slovak coach apparently decided to flip his #2 and #3 players, playing world #146 Poliackova in the second position, and world #98 Valentina Popova in the third position.

So the first match was USA #1 Gao (world #35) vs. Poliackova. Was it really a match? Gao wins, 10 & 10.

Tawny Banh defeats world #91 Eva Odorova. Copyright 2001 by Tong Lee.

Tawny Banh (USA) vs. Eva Odorova (SVK)
Odorova is a tall, two-winged spinner who likes to play off the table, and likes to serve backhand and follow with a backhand loop. Tawny is a relentlessly attacking player, looping her forehand and hitting with her backhand pips, usually from close to the table. Odorova is ranked #91 in the world to Tawny’s #144, so Odorova’s the favorite, right? How about after blowing Tawny off the table in the first game, winning the first game 21-7, right? In game two, Tawny’s attack settles in, and she wins 21-15. In the third, Tawny’s up 13-12, then 18-13, and it’s all over. Match to Tawny and USA, -7, 15, 15. Slovak has its back to the wall – this was a must win for them, since now one of them will have to beat Gao to stay in the first division.

Jasna Reed completely overpowered Valentina Popova in winning at 13 & 15. Copyright 2001 by Tong Lee.

Jasna Reed (USA) vs. Valentina Popova (SVK)
Both of these two are European veterans who have played many times before. Popova has a quick, punching backhand, and a nice backhand loop. She keeps coming at you from the backhand side, spraying her attack all over the table. Jasna is a more conventional two-winged attacker, looping her forehand and hitting and looping her backhand, and playing from all over the court. Also, looking at them through my binoculars, with Popova on the far side, the size difference was striking – Popova is huge by comparison.

Jasna is winning many points by forehand looping winners down the line to Popova’s wide backhand – since Popova sprays the ball all over the table, she gets many chances. Game one is all Jasna, 10-5, 14-6, 20-10, 21-13. And then … so is game two, 5-1, 11-5, 14-9, 18-11, 20-12, 20-15. Match to Jasna, 13 & 15, and USA has won 3-0 to make the First Division! Play will start tomorrow.

What made this even more surprising is that Slovak had just come off a team match with Chinese Taipei where Popova had defeated world #46 Jing Xu, and Odorova had played close three-gamers with Chen Jing (world #5) and Cheng Tong (world #41).

"I love America!" exclaimed Jasna.

USA Women will play Germany in the first round of Division One play in the round of 32. Germany's team includes Jie Schoepp (world #26), Nicole Struse (world #45) and Elke Schall (world #57). If Gao can win her two ... Jasna has played these players over and over and is familiar with their games.

USA Men
USA Men were earlier eliminated from the first division. However, they still had a match to play with Indonesia … which they won, 3-1. By doing so, they avoided a knock-out playoff against a third division team – where a loss would have left them in the third division. In the opening match, Indonesia's Ismu Harinto defeated USA's Barney J. Reed, 15 & 17. USA's David Zhuang then defeated Dian David Mickael Jacobs, 19,-17,9. USA's Eric Owens defeated Reno Handoyo, -17,13,16. "Old Reliable" David Zhuang finished out the team match defeating Harinto, 15 & 12.

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