China calls the shots at Suzhou table tennis worlds

China has underlined its status as the king of table tennis again as its players added two more golds at the world championships held in east China's Suzhou on Sunday.

In two characteristic all-Chinese finals, world number one Ma Long beat Fang Bo for his first world championships men's singles title while Liu Shiwen/Zhu Yuling defeated Ding Ning/Li Xiaoxia to win the women's doubles title.

With the Rio Olympic Games more than one year out, China demonstrated that it's still the one who calls the shots in the sport.

Besides the men's singles and women's doubles, the Chinese stars were also the winners of the women's singles and men's doubles the previous day.

The host had a part of the mixed doubles gold as well, with world No.2 Xu Xin partnering with South Korean Yang Hae-un to win the title as a transnational team.

Four out of all five finals at these championships were played between Chinese, and in men's and women's singles, the host players even swept medals of all colors.

Despite making efforts to broaden the appeal of the game in the world, China is still a runaway winner in the sport, barely leaving chances for all the other opponnets to catch up.

The comeback of the transnational pairing, which was proposed by China during last year's world team championships, was seen as one of the latest initiatives from China to expand the cooperations between associations and popularize the sport worldwide, but it did not work as expected.

The team of Ma/Timo Boll, which has been expected to cause media hype, lost in the second round of the men's doubles while Xu/Yang pair was the only transnational team left in the mixed doubles main draw after the second round.

Despite confirming that the International Table Tennis Federation has become one of the largest sports associations of the world with 222 member associations, the ITTF president Thomas Weikert expressed his concerns on the unbalance between east and west.

Weikert said: "The first thing is to minimize the gap between Asia, especially China, and other regions, especially Europe. If you see these championships, the Chinese are dominating because they are so good, so the Europeans and others have to work harder. Maybe there's also some education from the strongest nations necessary."

"China as the best nation is opening up to others. I think the cooperation between China and Europe must be strengthened. We need a change among the players so that they practice in China, but also in Europe. An exchange of coaches will also be very important," the German added.

The annual ITTF general meeting, held during the Suzhou world championships, gave the hosting right of the 2017 tournament to German city Dusseldorf, which is also the city of the leading German player Timo Boll's home club.

But it's embarrassing that Dusseldorf was the only city bidding for the hosting right.

The ITTF is aiming to build its sport into one of the top five sports in all terms, not just in membership. But apprently the world's governing body needs to do a lot of work. Endi