体坛英语新闻：Olympic champion Zhang scared at ProTour Finals

BEIJING - Leading Chinese mostly enjoyed easy wins on the opening day of the "Good Luck Beijing" ITTF ProTour Finals, while Olympic and world champion Zhang Yining has been scared before making a successful comeback to reach the quarterfinals here on Thursday.

The 25-year-old Zhang, who completed her "Grand Slam" winning run in 2005 after being crowned at the Shanghai world table tennis championships, came back from being down 1-3 to beat Tie Yana of Hong Kong, China in full sets.

China's world number one Zhang Yining returns a shot against Tie Yana from Chinese Hong Kong during their first round game at the International Table Tennis (ITTF) Pro Tour Grand Finals, one of the testing games for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at Peking University Gymnasium December 13, 2007. Zhang won the game 4-3. [Xinhua]

"I am not quite happy with my performance today." she said. "I was too anxious at first."

Zhang, having claimed her reign to the world table tennis with an Olympic final victory of the women's singles three years ago in Athens, secured a breathtaking win 9-11, 11-9, 4-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-7.

"After I was 1-3 behind, I changed the rhythm and I made fewer mistakes." added the world number one, who wasn't quite in form at the opening four sets as she was once 1-3 behind, while Tie, seeded ninth in the world, caught lots of good chances.

Zhang then found her rhythm back in the fifth game before winning the last three games in a row to take the victory.

World Cup four-time winner Ma Lin was the other one finding his rhythm during the year-ending event.

The 27-year-old found his way back to top form after a month in low and eased past Japanese top male paddler Kan Yo 11-7, 11-9, 15-13, 12-10.

With the victory, Ma set up a quarterfinal clash against Europe's best player Timo Boll after the latter won a German Derby 9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-5 over Dimitrij Ovtcharov.

"It's my best performance recently," Ma told press at a post-match news conference.

In other matches of the day, all Chinese have breezily skipped over their first hurdle as Ma Long came out the second Chinese reaching the men's quarters after denying 14-ranked Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei 15-13, 11-5, 13-11, 11-4.

Ma Long will next meet former Chinese Yang Zi, who was the winner of an all-Singaporean match against Gao Ning, 11-4, 11-9, 9-11, 11-8, 11-5.

On the women's part, world number two Wang Nan crashed Japanese Sayaka Hirano in straight sets, her fellow Chinese Guo Yan beat Lin Ling of Hong Kong 4-1, and Jiang Huajun kept Hong Kong's chance alive by winning 4-1 over Singapore's Feng Tianwei.

The Finals, an annual event by the world table tennis governing body slated on December 13-16 in the Beijing University Gymnasium, feature nearly all top paddlers with enough ProTour points and have an immediate impact on the Olympic qualifications.