China-US relationship enjoys winning start at table tennis World Championships, as ‘ping pong diplomacy’ returns after 50-year gap
- Combined mixed doubles teams ease through first round on the opening day in Houston
- Hong Kong’s paddlers have mixed day in singles as city’s Olympians return to competition
“Ping pong diplomacy” has returned to the world of table tennis after a 50-year gap, with American and Chinese players teaming up in the mixed doubles at the World Championships in the US.
While China are expected to dominate the competition in Houston, the resumption of the sporting relationship between the two countries generated most interest in the days before it started, especially considering the rather frosty political relationship between the two.
Two mixed doubles pairs have been formed, and both got off to winning starts at the George R Brown Convention Center on Wednesday, Hong Kong time.
American Kanak Jha and Wang Manyu of China beat Mariia Tailakova and Vladimir Sidorenko of Russia 3-0 (11-6, 19-17, 11-7) in the opening round of 64, while Lily Zhang (US) and Lin Gaoyan scored the same result when they joined forces to defeat Tiago Apolonia and Jieni Shao of Portugal 11-6, 11-9, 11-7.
At the World Championships in Nagoya, Japan, in 1971, Glenn Cowan, a young member of the US team mistakenly boarded the bus carrying the Chinese team.
Zhuang Zedong, then the world’s best player, greeted the American through an interpreter. Photographers caught the incident on camera. The political climate in the 1960s was such, that the sight of Chinese and American athletes together was headline news. The unexpected goodwill between the two teams soon became the talk of the tournament.