Sat, Sep 23, 2000 page16

• Chen Jing defeats German player to enter semifinals

  ALL-ASIAN COMPETITION Taiwan's gold medal hopeful had to crawl out of a two-set hole to defeat Germany's Qianhong Gotsch. A change of strategy and reducing unforced errors made the difference

  • By William Ide / STAFF REPORTER IN SYDNEY
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  Taiwan's Chen Jing (陳靜) salvaged a tight game in women's table tennis singles yesterday, coming back from two sets down to win, moving on to the semifinals today.

  Chen lost her first two sets to Germany's Qianhong Gotsch (何千紅), as careless mistakes left her behind, 21-17, 21-19.

  Chen appeared to be frayed by her loses in the first two sets, shaking her head from time to time after she hit long returns or plowed fast forehand shots into the net. After the match, a relaxed and relieved Chen said that despite the mistakes she was still positive she could turn the game around as she went into the third round.

  "It wasn't a technical problem, it was just that I was making too many mistakes. I still had my ability, so I was confident," Chen said.

  "She has never defeated me before, so I expected her to change her strategy from defensive to offensive. I decided to be offensive in the beginning as well, but I attacked so hard that I made many errors," she said.

  Chen and Gotsch have played twice earlier this year, at the Dawei World Team Championships and the International Table Tennis Federation's (ITTF) 1999 Pro Tour Grand Finals held at Sydney in January.

  Gotsch took an early lead in the third set but after the two were tied at five, Chen widened the gap, carrying her lead all the way through to the end of the set. Just before Chen won the set and was leading 19-13, Gotsch's coach was asked to leave the area as he was caught talking with Gotsch during the set, an infraction of the rules. Chen won 21-13.

  Like Chen, Gotsch was formerly a table tennis player in China. Gotsch married in 1991 and emigrated to Germany.

  In the fourth set, Gotsch's play further waned as Chen won 21-10. Chen's wide lead over Gotsch in the set was made possible, in part by a string of sloppy mistakes by the German player as Chen shined during a series of long, fast rallies. Gotsch appeared to be saving up her energy for the fifth set, which became a point-by-point struggle up until the very end.

  With the set tied at 5-5, Gotsch slowly pulled into the lead until Chen was able to again draw even at 13-13. Chen then began to pull ahead of Gotsch by continuously firing the ball into her opponents left corner and forcing her to make consecutive returns on her backhand. Chen pushed through to win 21-17.

  As the two players left the court, Gotsch gave one referee a forcible slap instead of a handshake, apparently for forcing her coach from the playing area.

  Today (12pm in Taiwan) Chen Jing will face No. 1-ranked Wang Nan (王楠) from China in their semifinal match. Wang and Chen have faced each other four times in the past year. While it is hard to say how the game will go, Chen's performance record so far does not weigh in her favor.

  Out of the four games, Chen has only won once against Wang. However, the last time Chen did win was when she faced Wang in Sydney at January's ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals.

  When asked what strategy she would use against Wang, Chen said: "I haven't thought about it yet. I only think about one match at a time."

  The women's singles semifinals today will be an all-Asian affair, with China facing Taiwan at one table and Singapore's Jing Jun Hong (井浚泓) and China's Li Ju (李菊) competing at the second table.

  Meanwhile, Taiwan's Chiang Peng-lung (蔣澎龍), ranked third, lost in the men's singles round of 16 yesterday, beaten 21-11, 21-13, 21-19 by China's Liu Guozheng (劉國正) who apparently had done all his homework,

  It wasn't until the third round that Chiang began to catch on to Liu's strategy, but by then it was too late for him to turn the game around.

  "I was under his control the whole time; he played very offensive today and he put on so much speed that I could not counterattack," Chiang said.

  After the match, Liu said that prior to the match he had been studying Chiang to identify all of his weak points. "We've studied him very well," Liu said.
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