China's mighty paddlers led the field in the first round of the 2007 World Table Tennis Championships in Zagreb yesterday, notching up ten 4-0 wins.

The Chinese proved simply too strong for their opponents, the whole team combining to lose only two sets in the first round of five events.

Ma Lin, a veteran of six World Championship finals (including four wins), dropped one set against Polish athlete Wang Zengyi before taking the match in the men's singles tournament.  

The other set was dropped by Yao Yan and Xu Xin who saw off India's  Achanta and Poulomi Ghatak 3-1.

The rest of the team all enjoyed whitewashes with Olympic hope Ma Long wiping out Russian Kirill Skachkov 4-0 to reach the second round.

In the women's singles, China's world No.1 Zhang Yining routed Ng Sock Khim of Malaysia 4-0 while Hong Kong showed the mainland they are no slouches with Tie Yana destroying US athlete and Yao Xi Huang in straight sets.

China's top doubles players didn't need to break a sweat either with Chen Qi/Ma Lin and Wang Hao/Wang Liqin romping into the second round in straight sets. The women soon joined them with Wang Nan/Zhang Yining and Guo Yue/Li Xiaoxia keeping a clean sheet in the women's doubles.

Finally, top-seeded Guo Yue/Wang Liqin took their mixed doubles opener 4-0.

"We had been ready for a difficult day since the first round is usually tough," said the Chinese coach Liu Guoliang. "As it turns out, we were fine."

Austria's 2003 world singles champion Werner Schlager fell prey to age since he collapsed in both the singles and doubles openers while another big name, Alexei Smirnov of Russia, succumbed in the first round to Nigeria's Segun Toriola.

(Xinhua News Agency May 23, 2007)