46^th World Table Tennis Championships

Osaka, Japan · April 23 - May 6, 2001

Women's Singles Final

China's Wang Nan Wins Again

By Tim Boggan

Wang Nan smacks in a forehand in final against Lin Ling. Photo copyright 2001 by Julian Waters.

The 2001 Osaka World Women’s Singles final was won, 19 in the 4^th, by China’s 22-year-old Defending (and current Olympic) Champion Wang Nan over China’s 24-year-old former Asian Champion Lin Ling.

After the finalists had split their first two tensionless games, play picked up—as did the noisy accompaniment of a pocket of perhaps 100 white-shirted Chinese sporadically erupting into drum-beating cheers, chants, claps, and congenial laughter.

And—winning every event as the Chinese are—why shouldn’t they laugh?

Someone told me that these China supporters who’d obviously banded together to have fun, to cheer on their own, and in the process try to liven up the minimal spectator interest, were sometimes roaring out a directive to the two players on court. One that might be literally translated as “Chinese players, add fuel!” Meaning: “Something’s burning—add more!” Which, my source told me, is equivalent to saying more than the idiomatic “Get fired up!”—for the figurative fire within is presumably already burning. Hence: “Chinese daughters, intensify your efforts!”

And intensify their now de rigueur topspin play they did—with Wang favoring forehand putaway attempts and Lin backhand counter-attacks.

The Champion, whose stature is approaching that of her famous superstar predecessor Deng Yaping, was helped midway in the 4^th by a seeming lapse of concentration on her opponent’s part. From 7-all, Lin very unstrategically pushed a serve return up the middle for Wang to wallop, then served into the net, then whiffed a ball, then misserved again. By 12-7 time there’d been a mass movement of the courtside cameramen to position themselves for frontal shots of Wang as she’d go on, though not without a struggle, to victory.

The first of the two earlier semi’s matches, won by Wang in 4 over 19-year-old World #3 Zhang Yining, Singles runner-up at the ’99 Eindhoven World’s, generated little audience enthusiasm. The 1^st game was key. Wang played very badly, but was given a reprieve when Zhang, up 16-12, pushed three balls into the net, two off Wang’s serve, and then, from 19-all, passively left open, first, her forehand, then her backhand, which the Champion quickly took 21-19 pummeled-in advantage of. Though Zhang, scoring with smooth-stroke, off-the-bounce backhands, did win the 3^rd game, by the end of the match she appeared, well, listless.

By far the most dramatic and most crowd-pleasing of the final matches was the one between China’s World #14 Lin and North Korea’s vastly underrated World #59 Kim Yun Mi. This semi’s matched up players from different countries who had markedly different styles—which of course is what spectators most want to see. One wonders if the very strong Corbillon Cup runner-up North Korean team deliberately kept this Kim out of play, thinking that the less probable-singles-opponents saw of her the better.

An inverted/long pips penhold player, Kim serves with the inverted side, then against a push return she either hits with the pips or jabs with the inverted, and against topspin she chop/blocks and waits to pick a forehand. Although one of Kim’s strengths is her unpredictable use of the two sides of her racket, Lin was able to backhand topspin against those pips and smack her own forehand. However, Lin had to be careful not to overswing and get out of position, for there was a chance that even a hard-hit ball could be blocked back. When Kim got the attack, Lin was forced to fall back on her topspin defense, what they now call “fishing,” but because Kim didn’ t usually hit that hard Lin could sometimes get back into the point

Such variety of play is always fun for the spectators to watch. Further, when it’s not just the Chinese supporters who’ve banded together to beat the drums for their favorites but their banded opponents as well—in this case, the North Koreans—the Hall becomes alive with flag-waving followers chanting and counter-chanting, yelling and counter yelling gutteral sounds and squeals of encouragement.

Encouragement not only to the players on court, but to aficionados off, who sometimes of an afternoon drowsily despair that their Sport is about to take The Big Sleep.

Would that such spectator involvement, such fan identification be rampant among all countries. Indeed, we could do with even more groups of three—like the horn-helmeted, costumed “Mongolians” rooting so vociferously for the fallen Swedes.  

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