DUBAI // Li Xiaoxia, the reigning Olympic champion and winner of the women’s singles title at the 2013 world championship, will be hoping to add the only major title missing from her glittering resume when she turns out at the 2016 Table Tennis Asian Cup this weekend.
China’s Xiaoxia, who has also won the singles crown at the World Cup (2008) and the Asian Games (2010), will head a stellar field of the continent’s best players, who will be competing at the Dubai World Trade Centre’s Zabeel Hall 1 from Thursday till Saturday for the last ranking points available before the final Olympic qualifiers are decided.
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Xiaoxia, 28, has already booked her ticket for the summer’s Games in Rio de Janeiro through the Asian qualification tournament in Hong Kong earlier this month. But the Chinese will not be short of motivation to succeed in Dubai.
She has not had much success at previous Asian Cups, though she did finish as the runner-up in New Delhi in 2005, and Xiaoxia will be determined to correct that anomaly and go one better in Dubai.
Xiaoxia, however, will face a stiff challenge, particularly from Singapore’s Asian Cup defending champion Feng Tainwei. Winner of the team and singles bronze medal at the London Games four years ago, Tainwei will be the biggest threat to the Chinese domination of the game, both in Dubai and in Rio later this summer.
The men’s field will be headed by China’s defending champion and three-time Asian Cup winner Xu Xin, who also has seven world championship gold medals in doubles and team competitions.
The three members of the Indian table tennis squad for the Rio Olympics – Soumyajit Ghosh, Achanta Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra – will also be in action at the DWTC this weekend, playing without the worry of qualifying for the Olympics.
Ghosh arrives in Dubai as the winner of the qualifying tournament in Hong Kong and Kamal also booked his ticket for Rio through at that same event. Batra will represent India in the women’s singles event in Dubai and Rio, where she will be joined by Mouma Das.
A total of 11 countries will be represented at the tournament, including China, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, India, Thailand, Qatar, Iran and the UAE.
“The recent ITTF Asian Olympic Qualification Tournament showed the quality and calibre of players heading to Dubai this week,” said Dawoud Al Hajiri, president of the UAE Badminton and Table Tennis Association.
“This year’s Asian Cup promises to be one of the most competitive yet and, with free entry to the event, is a wonderful opportunity to see the best in the world in action just 100 days before the Olympic Games.”
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