World No. 1 paddler Ma Long becomes fifth male Grand Slam winner in Rio

World No. 1 Ma Long completed his Grand Slam request and came out the fifth male paddler to do so in table tennis after winning an All-Chinese final over defending champion Zhang Jike here on Thursday at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

It has been China's 11th gold at the Rio Games, while Zhang added a silver.

Ma, 27, made short work of his teammate Zhang 14-12, 11-5, 11-4, 11-4.

The victory puts the reigning world champion in the same league of such legendary players as his coach Liu Guoliang, China's women's national coach Kong Linghui, Sweden's Jan-Ove Waldner and his opponent of the final Zhang Jike.

Zhang, already a Grand Slam winner four years ago after crowned at the World Championships, World Cup and Olympic Game in just 15 months, made too many unforced errors and failed to perform his trademark backhand to easily surrender.

The first set was his best chance though the 28-year-old suffered a slow start as usual to trail 8-4 after opening it in style.

Coming back to his normal level of play, Zhang pulled five points in a row to overtake the lead 9-8, but the Qingdao native again stumbled before losing it 14-12 with two unforced errors in the end.

The following games thus went in favor of Ma, who led 6-2, 10-4 in the second set with fast and perfect reaction and kept it that way. Endit