China wins all medals in male singles table tennis competition.
The world No. 1, Ma Long, completed his Grand Slam quest after winning an All-Chinese final over defending champion Zhang Jike at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Ma made short work of teammate Zhang 14-12, 11-5, 11-4, 11-4. It has been Team China’s 11th gold at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, while Zhang added a silver.
The victory puts the reigning world champion, 27, in the same league of such legendary players as his coach Liu Guoliang, China’s women’s national coach Kong Linghui, Sweden’s Jan-Ove Waldner and his opponent of the final Zhang Jike.
Already a Grand Slam winner four years ago after being crowned at the world championships, world cup and Olympic Games in just 15 months, Zhang made too many unforced errors and failed to perform his trademark backhand Thursday evening to easily surrender.
The first set was his best chance, though the 28-year-old suffered a slow start as usual to trail 8-4 after opening it in style.
Coming back to his normal level of play, Zhang pulled five points in a row to take the lead 9-8, but the Qingdao native again stumbled before losing it 14-12 with two unforced errors in the end.
The following games thus went in favor of Ma, who led 6-2, 10-4 in the second set with fast and perfect reaction and kept it that way.
Earlier in the evening, Jun Mizutani won the first ever Olympic men’s as well as singles medal of table tennis for Japan after beating 40-year-old Belarus veteran Vladimir Samsonov 4-1 in the third-place play-off. (NAN)
