World Championships

Mixed Doubles at the Worlds

By Tim Boggan

With a win in Mixed Doubles—the first 2005 World Championship to be decided—China was on its way to a sweep of all the events. Considering that 7 of the last 16 pairs, that all 4 semifinalists, were Chinese, it had only to be decided which one would send the fans “into ecstasy.”

Would it be Wang Hao/Wang Nan? They’d survived, 4-3, over the Hong Kong team of Li Ching/Lau Sui Fei to reach the quarter’s. But no way was Wang Nan going to be in a position to pass the 18 golds in World-play majors China’s revered Deng Yaping had won. The #1 seeds went down to fellow Chinese Qiu Yike/Cao Zhen. Qiu at World #37 had seemed to me an unlikely candidate to get too far, though he and Cao did blitz Zoltan Fejer-Konnerth/Nicole Struse. Earlier, the Germans had quickly eliminated our Cheng Yinghua/Jasna Reed partnership, then had 4-2 gotten by Japan’s youthful hope Jun Mizutani and Aya Umemura—with the feisty veteran Struse, in colorful green and yellow headband, having words with the umpire on being faulted. Meanwhile, two U.S. Pairs were quickly ousted—David Zhuang/Tawny Banh by Japan’s Taku Takakiwa/Sayaka Hirano, and Khoa Nguyen/Jackie Lee by Singapore’s Cai Xiao Li/Li Jia Wei.

Perhaps China’s Hao Shuai/Niu Jianfeng would take the Championship? China Daily reported that a Hao Shuai fan club, 131 strong, came all the way from Tianjin to cheer him on. (Cost of 10-day trip to each: $500.) Dressed alike in white shirts and caps, a painted national flag reddened on their cheeks, they cheered raucously, all the while holding aloft “a big banner saying, ‘Hao Shuai, you are so handsome.’ (The pronunciation of Hao Shuai is the same as handsome in Chinese.)” However, China ‘s 2003 World Mixed runner-ups Liu Guozheng/Bai Yang not only knocked off Hong Kongers Leung Chu Yan/Song Ah Sim, 4-0, but blanked Hao/Niu as well.

Although Yan Sen/Guo Yan had to struggle mightily to oust North Korea’s Pak Won Chol/Kim Hyang Mi, I had the strong feeling that Chen Qi and Zhang Yining (the favorite to win Women’s Singles and Doubles) weren’t going to beat Yan and Guo—and this was reinforced when Chen, up 7-6 in the 6^th, sent a ball very long, unnecessarily long, off, then returned serve into the net. In the companion quarter’s, there was no Chinese pair and so a window to the stars opened there that allowed other countries some imaginative scope. Of course, though Japan’s Seiya Kishikawa/Ai Fujinuma overwhelmed the Koreans Kim Song Choi and Kim Jong (a surprise 4-3 winner over Hong Kong’s Cheung Yuk and World #7 Tie Yana), they were no match for China’s Yan/Guo.

Could the 4^th semi’s contenders possibly be our Ilija Lupulesku/Gao Jun? As Lupi was to lament, they had a good draw—their opponents, in the hot and humid Annex, Austria’s Defending World Champion Werner Schlager (complaining about the playing conditions and not at his best) and Liu Jia. But a bummer for those cheering for the U.S., said to have an official contingent second only to the Chinese, for in the round of 32, after taking the 1^st game 14-12, Lupi/Gao can’t quite keep their momentum, lose the 2^nd, 12-10. Then though they’re up 3-2 in games, having just 11-2 annihilated the Austrians in the 5th, they can’t put them away, drop the last two games 8 and, ohhh, 9. Schlager/ Liu then stickily prevail, again 4-3, past the Korean team of Oh Sang Eun/Lee Hyang Mi, only to be destroyed by China’s World #1 Wang Liqin/World #5 Guo Yue who’d downed the 4-2 contesting Hong Kong pair, Ko Lai Chak/Zhang Rui.

Then, immensely satisfying to the sold-out crowd of thousands (some reportedly willing to pay scalpers 200 yuan ($24) for a 60-yuan ticket), one Chinese semi’s went 4-1 to righty Liu Guozheng/lefty Bai Yang; the other 4-1 to righty Wang Liqin/lefty Guo Yue. The see-saw 4-3 final (only minutes after Liu had come off an exhausting 7-game thriller in the Men’s with Germany’s Timo Boll) went to superstar Wang—his first Mixed Doubles gold medal and first time he’d paired with the very promising 16-year-old Guo. As buffs will know, in more than a quarter of a century now, the Chinese have lost only one World Mixed Championship. Anybody want to bet when they’ll lose again?