Table tennis: World No. 1s Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng send warning to S'pore rivals

SINGAPORE - After winning the men's singles World Table Tennis Championships last week, world No. 1 Fan Zhendong is eager to build on that momentum.

And he did that in style, beating German Patrick Franziska 3-0 (14-12, 11-7, 11-9) on Saturday (Dec 4) to reach the quarter-finals of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Cup Finals at the OCBC Arena.

Fan, 24, said: "Winning the world championships is an important achievement in my career. More importantly, I want to ride on this success and achievement to improve myself and get better.

"Coming here I have very clear goals for myself and just want to try my best so I can keep moving forward and doing better."

But it was not an easy win for Fan, who is in Singapore for the first time, as he had to overcome a 14-hour time difference while adapting to a different table, ball and lighting from what he was used to in Houston.

World No. 16 Franziska also kept Fan on his toes in the first game, narrowly losing 14-12. Fan then easily won the second game but later trailed 5-0 in the third game.

But he kept calm, saying he just concentrated on winning it one at a point. He started playing more aggressively and eventually complete his comeback.

He said: "I had to fight quite hard in the first and third game. In the first game, since it was my first time competing here, I had to take some time to adjust and get used to the settings.

"Then having won the first game, I gave myself more mental space. Hopefully, I'll be able to have more victories.

Franziska acknowledged that Fan was simply the better player, saying: "I actually played very good in the rallies. In the end, it's about the small margins.

"He made the right decision at crucial moments and he has powerful shots and amazing movements. But I'm happy with my performance today."

Fan's compatriot and fellow world No. 1 Chen Meng had a trickier assignment, toiling to a 3-1 (11-8, 9-11, 11-5, 12-10) win over Japanese world No. 7 Kasumi Ishikawa.

Spurred by the cheers of "All the best Chen Meng!" in Mandarin from the audience, she raised her game in the final two games despite some distracting flash photography - which is not allowed - from the crowd.

Chen, 27, said: "It's my first time playing in this arena and I wasn't very used to it. I think someone used flash photography and that affected my game. I hope it won't happen again.

"Not everything is smooth-sailing during a match. You might lose some points but I still worked hard and took it one point at a time.

"Because even though I've lost the game, it's not the end of the whole match yet so I still have to focus on winning the match."