The Unofficial 2008 Beijing Olympics Blog

After its Women’s victory Sunday evening, China’s Men’s team shoulders even heavier pressure to play well at the Men’s Table Tennis Team final the on Monday. The Men’s bronze medal match will precede the gold medal match. The Women’s Singles preliminary round will begin in the morning’s session Monday.

China will seek to continue its dominance in Table Tennis and, if successful, will take the second Team Table Tennis gold medal to be offered in the history of the Olympic Games. China’s trio — World No. 1 Wang Hao, World No. 2 Ma Lin and world champion Wang Liqin — will face sixth-ranked Timo Boll and two of Europe’s most promising players Christian Suss and Dimitrij Ovtcharov. Germany’s hopes rest largely with Timo Boll. Having beaten each of the three Chinese players at least once in their previous matches, he is a player who has proved he can cause the Chinese problems.

Earlier in the afternoon, Austria, seeded No.9, will meet the Republic of Korea, seeded No.3, to determine the bronze medal in the Men’s Team competition. Eyes will be on Ryu Seung-min (ROK), the reigning champion from the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, who has now played six singles matches in the Men’s Team event but only won two of them.

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