World Championships

Men’s Doubles at the Worlds

By Tim Boggan

In the Chen Qi/Ma Lin half of the Draw—they’re the #1 seeds, the Athens Olympic Men’s Doubles Champions—spectators saw the once great Swedish players Jan-Ove Waldner/Jorgen Persson, doubles partners for almost 20 years, 4-3 barely survive the relatively weak Czech Republic pair of Marek Klasek/Radek Kostal, then get wiped out by Romanians Adrian Crisan (World #13) and Vasile Florea (1996 U.S. Open Champ, but now not ranked in the Top 100).

Since players or pairs from the same country are no longer separated in the Draw as they used to be, the two Taipei Doubles teams nearly met in the 2^nd round. But the much lower ranked of the two, Chiang Hung-Chieh/Wu Chih-Chi, 13-15 in the 7^th just missed upsetting Germany’s Jorg Rosskopf/Lars Helscher. Meanwhile, the long established Netherlands pair of Trinko Keen/Danny Heister, up 3-0 on the long established pair of Werner Schlager/Karl Jindrak tried hard to -9, -9, -9 blow it, but didn’t. However, it was just not to be Schlager’s week here in Shanghai, which was ironic because he had the reputation of being one of the Europeans with the best chance to beat the Chinese. (Back at the 1999 World’s, he and “best friend” Jindrak had 8 match-points on the eventual winners Kong Linghui/Liu Guoliang).

The other Taipei team of Chuan Chih-Yuan (World #8) and 1999 U.S. Open Champion Chiang Peng-Lung (World #16), both ousted early in Singles, had incentive enough to blank the Germans, then 11-9 in the 7^th outlast Keen/Heister. In fact, having advanced to the quarter’s, they won the first two games from Chen/Ma before (“CHIN-a! CHIN-a!”) -2, -5, -2, -6 going to pieces.

It was Denmark’s Michael Maze’s week—and not only in Singles. First, he and Finn Tugwell (bronze winners at the 2004 Olympics) convincingly stopped our team of U.S. Champions Cheng Yinghua/Ilija Lupulesku, then (-7, -5, 9, -4, 6, 10, 9) rallied to defeat Spanish upstarts, Alfredo Carneros/Marc Duran, neither of whom had won their opening Singles matches. However, it was Germany’s Timo Boll/ Christian Suss—by (8, 9, 12, -6, -6, 9) subduing the determined Danes, and then the Polish pair, Lucian Blaszczyk/Wang Zeng Yi (advancers, after being down 2-0 and at 10-all in the 3^rd to Hong Kong’s Ko Lai Chak/Li Ching)—who were able to reach the semi’s and meet Chen/Ma.

On the Wang Liqin/Yan Sen side of the Draw—they’re 2-time World and also 2000 Sydney Olympic Doubles Champions—many an observer must have done not a double but a quadruple take to see the 1^st-round 2, 1, 2, 5 scores that these overpowering Chinese posted against an obscure Indonesian pair. So, was that annihilation so unexpected? Uh, the “match” went 7 games! And the motive for this was…? (A little bonding? To prepare, shakily, for this powerhouse team’s eventual defeat?)

Naturally such silliness was soon dispensed with. Among Wang/Yan’s strewn victims to the semi’s were the struggling Swedes, Peter Karlsson/Jens Lundqvist (who’d eked out a 14-12 in the 7^th opening with North Korea’s An Choi Yong/Kim Song Choi), and South Korea’s Olympic Champion Ryu Seung Min (World #6) and Lee Jung Woo (World #77) who’d had to go 7 to beat the Austrian pair, also widely separated in ranking, Chen Weixing (World #14)/Kostadin Lengerov (World #98).

Advancing to meet Wang/Yan in the semi’s was of course China’s Kong Linghui/Wang Hao. Best matches in this section saw Spain’s Carlos Machado/He Zhi Wen (his week too) win a 4-2/11-9-in-the-6^th thriller (4 deuce games) over the Japanese pair of Jun Mizutani (whom Al Miller of the U.S. called the early “bright spark” of the tournament) and Kaii Yoshida. (Strange that the current World Junior Boys’ Doubles Champions, Mizutani and Kishikawa, weren’t playing together?) Machado and He were then beaten by Serbia’s Slobodan Grujic and his partner, the 2003 U.S. Open Champion Aleksandar Karakasevic, who (9, -9, -8, -10, 9, 9, 5) continued fighting when they might have lost heart. After downing these advancers, Kong and Wang moved to the semi’s with a win over Hong Kong’s 2004 Asia Cup Champ Cheung Yuk and his partner Leung Chu Yan who’d roughed up Feodor Kuzmin/Alexei Smirnov after the Russians had finally, 12-10 in the 7^th, broken through Greek defenders Panagiotis Gionis/Ntaniel Tsiokas.

In the final at the last World’s, Wang Liqin/Yan Sen defeated Kong Linghui/Wang Hao. But who knew who’d win this time? Still, if someone had to be the fall guy, it was going to be Yan Sen—and with Kong/Wang leading 3-2 in games and at 9-all in the 6^th, Sen does err…and at 10-all he errs again…and down match-point he tries to hit in a serve and does a very poor job of it. Then he spins his paddle high into the air. Want to say (with him?), Oh well?

In the other semi, a relief from the unrelenting onslaught of the Chinese, Boll/Suss won both the big deuce games (13-11, 15-13) from Chen Qi/Ma Lin, and, on triumphing in the 5^th, leaped into one another’s arms.

But the Germans’ joy was short-lived, for in the final Suss, faulted on serve, and provoked on another occasion to wave a dismissive hand at the umpire, was not, as he later admitted at a Press Conference, in top form—and so, with their 4-1 win, the Chinese took still another title.

Who, really, can hope to beat them?…How?