The Chinese teams, both men and women, kept intact of their unbeaten records in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, the third day at the 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships.
Chinese men's team, the defending champions, who beat Greece last Sunday and defeated the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Chinese Taipei on Monday, took a comfortable three-nil win over the Czech Republic for their fourth straight victory.
Zhang Jike beat Jancarik Lubomir 11-3, 12-10 and 11-8, and his teammates Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong won their matches both at 3-0, securing their fourth round victory at the group stage of the championships.
Liu Guoliang, head coach of the Chinese team, said that his disciples have been playing better and better. "Among all the players, Fan is the best, as he has played in every round. The other players are also tuning up for themselves," he added.
Also as reigning champions, the Chinese women beat Spain 3-0 as Zhu Yuling and Ding Ning took comfortable wins over Zhang Xuan and Dvorak Galia respectively, both at 3-0, and Li Xiaoxia, who was still away from her best form, beat Caymel Claudia 13-11, 13-11 and 11-5 to wrap up the match.
Kong Linghui, head coach of the Chinese women's team, explained that Li did not relax enough on Tuesday, and "I will let her play again tomorrow for another match of the group stage."
The 24 men's and women's teams were drawn into four groups of six teams apiece for the first stage of the 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships which ran from Feb. 28 to March 6.
Chinese men's team is in group A with Austria, Chinese Taipei, Greece, the Czech Republic and DPRK, while Chinese women's team is pitted against Chinese Taipei, Romania, Hungary, Spain and hosts Malaysia.
