Unfamiliarity with opponents, nervousness from playing in the first match, and a critical red card combined to the loss of Chen/Xu in the round-of-16 of women's doubles. The 0-3 defeat to Romanian pair Badescu/Steff resulted in the first elimination of a seeded pair in the event.
The one point penalty was critical. Chen/Xu were one game down but ahead 20-18 in the second game, with Xu to serve. Xu started to serve, then stopped to talk to Chen, with mouth behind racket. She was warned once already, via a yellow card, for delaying the game. This time, the referee gave a red card and a point deduction. Then the pair lost another point to be caught up at 20-20. Finally they lost 21-23 in that crucial game.
In the third game, Chen/Xu still played well to open up a 15-9 lead. But then they played too conservatively, and lost 7 points in a row. After deucing, they lost the next 2 points and the game at 20-22. 0-3, eliminated.
Afterwards Chen and Xu did not want to talk to reporters, and left with dark expressions. Coach Xu said that at this year's World Teams, both Chen and Xu lost to Steff, so there was some consternation over playing against her, and coupled with nervousness, they played very tight. For the Chinese Taipei team, the loss was not major because the pair had a difficult draw and would be hard-pressed to medal. (This reminds one of sour grapes.)
(For the original article and a photo showing the critical mistake, click here.)
Despite the first round loss in doubles, the Singaporeans were not discouraged. They played well to defeat their singles opponents to advance to the last 16.
Jing scored an easy 3-0 upset over 4th seed Sun Jin of China. The scores were 16, 17 and 7. Sun is China's number 3 player, and a team member in Malaysia. Earlier Jing lost to Sun 1-3 in the Olympics Qualification tournament.
After the match Jing said, "I started the match assuming that I was going to lose. I therefore had nothing to lose. This win made up a little for our doubles loss.
"The important thing is that I controlled the opponent in the first 3 balls. I did not expected to win that 3rd game so easily.
"In the 3rd game I played very well right from the start. I kept warning myself not to get nervous. In the rallies, I played well, and the opponent finally gave up."
Jing will face another Chinese expat Geng Lijuan in the next round. Geng beat Croatian in a tight 5 game match.
The statistics showed that Jing primarily scored points with the forehand in the match. She had a 52% scoring percentage on her forehand shots. Her backhand was 24%, and then 14% on serves. Sun had a 10% error. (These are percentages of the points Jing scored.)
Sun scored quite heavily on her backhand, but only 24% on her forehand.
Li Jia Wei, the other woman player from Singapore, beat Liu Jia from Austria 3 games to 1 to advance to the final 16. She will join Toth (Hunagry), Tong Fei Ming (Chinese Taipei), Chire Koyama, Qianhong He, Suk, Chen Jing, and others.
18-year old Li, from Beijing, will face Wang Nan in the next round. Lee is a left-handed shakehander with an attacking style. She admitted that the doubles loss the previous night affected her a little. When she lost that 3rd game to Liu Jia after being ahead in that game, her mind kept coming back to the doubles match when they were ahead and lost the key 4th game (Jing/Lee were ahead 17-11 in the key 4th game). She said she never thought she would lose to Liu Jia before the match.
About the match against Wang Nan, Li said that she had no mental burden, and that the pressure is on the other side. "She watched me played this morning and they videotaped my match. That shows that they are worried about me."
Click here for photos and the original article from Zaobao of Singapore.
(Chung's notes: Jing's previous big victory was in the '93 Worlds. She eliminated then-world-number-one Deng Yaping in the early singles rounds. Her upset of Sun Jin is the biggest so far in table tennis at the Olympics. By the way, September 20 was a bad day for the Sun's in the Chinese Olympic team. Sun Jun lost in the men's badminton singles quarter-finals. Sun Wen, arguable the best female footballer in the world, was in tears after her team that she captains was eliminated by Norway in the crucial division game. Putting USA, Norway and China in the same division is some bad joke, IMHO.)
Chinese team leader Zhang Xielin told reporters that the main reasons why Sun lost were nervousness, and bad return of serves.
Zhang said that because Sun did not return serves well, she was in a passive position throughout the match. In the 3rd game, Sun lost all 5 of Jing's serves. In the 2nd game, Sun was ahead 13-7 and had a great chance to win, but did not seize the chance. She was not decisive because of her nervousness, and led to many errors. Seven years ago when Deng lost to Jing at the Worlds, one of the main reasons was because Deng could not handle Jing's serves.
Zhang also said that Jing played at a very high level, much better than the Chinese had expected. Sun's strategy of attacking Jing's forehand did not succeed, because Jing blocks very well on her forehand.
Sun and Jing both came from the Jiangsu province of China. Jing emigrated to Singapore 10 years ago.
Tonight's doubles victory was very tough, and scary. We were behind 1-2 in games, but we were able to change our strategy in time, and won the next 2 games at 18. Finally 3-2 in games to win the match.
Perhaps at the time our coaches and our teammates were very tense and nervous for us, but we did not have any particular feeling. We had lost before in our warm-up tournaments back home, and we thought we might lose, but that feeling passed away quickly. I feel a little numb towards winning or losing; because I am fighting, I did not feel calm in any match.
Although we are the number 1 seed and placed in the final 16 automatically, our opponents are not weak, judging from this match.
We seldom faced this Polish pair, Blaszczyk and Krzeszewski, and we are not familiar with thier style. They have their characteristic serves that gave us problems. Also we did not play up to our level. That's why it was a struggle.
Our next opponents are Kim/Ong. We lost to them before, but we have confidence that we will win.
The singles start tomorrow. My first opponent is Keen, so I need to sleep early tonight. I slept late the previous nights, and had trouble getting up. But tomorrow will be better.
(Click here for a photo of Kong and Liu in action in Sydney. Kong is spotting a crew-cut, largely because of some misunderstanding between him and the barber. But it was a free haircut.)
On this second day of competition, Li Ju and I advanced, but Sun lost in singles. For me, playing Li Chunli from New Zealand was not much pressure. In doubles, we also got into the final 4.
Although we are not familiar with Li Chunli, she is from Guangxi province, and an ex-member of the national team. Before the match, my coach and I discussed her thoroughly. This 2-sided attacker usually starts strong, but then could not sustain the pace. In tonight's match, she was very aggresive the first 2 games. I still played according to my strategy and not be fazed by her attacks. More importantly, I believe in my ability. After playing the first 2 games solidly and winning, I had her playing to my pace, and the third game was easy.
Li Ju had to play 5 games to beat the Russian opponent who appears to be quite good. Playing a tight match early is not a bad thing; that will raise Li's awareness level.
So we should thank Li for sounding the warning bell for all of us. When I told her that, she was not amused.
Another bad piece of news was Sun's loss. She stayed in her room tonight and did not say one word. The Olympics happens once every 4 years, and it could be very cruel.
The Men's singles draw is now complete, and Chiang Pang-Lung and Cheng Yen-Su got their wishes, drawing Kreanga and Samsonov, respectively.
Yesterday Cheng said, jokingly, that since he was in the bottom half of the draw, he night as well draw a strong player. If he wins, it will be bigger news. So now he gets Samsonov. "I'll play whoever I have to," he said.
Yesterday when Chiang was practicing, he saw Kreanga there, too, and thought it would not be bad to draw him. Unexpected the draw came out, and he gets Kreanga. He felt a little wierd about this.
Chiang's first problem is Liu Guozheng in the round of 16. Liu will play P. Saive first, who had beaten Liu before. P. Saive boasted yesterday that he will repeat that victory, and then take care of Chiang next. "First see if you can take care of Liu first. Who's afraid of who", Chiang said.