Guo Yue heads towards Olympic Games

(BEIJING, June 28) -- Guo Yue, an upstart of the Chinese women's table tennis team, won a ticket to the Games last week as one of only three women table tennis players representing China – the other two being Zhang Yining and Wang Nan – in the coming Olympic Games.

20-year-old Guo is China's youngest world champion. She grabbed a bronze medal in the Women's Doubles at the Athens Olympic Games. According to Shi Zhihao, coach of the Chinese women's team, Guo's winning of the Women's Singles title at the Volkswagen Open in Daejeon in the Republic of Korea this June was a great boost for her self-confidence.

Guo took up table tennis at the age of six. Two years later, she joined the professional team of Liaoning Province that witnessed the rise of Chinese star player Wang Nan. In 2000 she was called up to join the Chinese national team, where her natural athletic talents were recognized. She became the youngest finalist in the ITTF Pro Tour Finals in 2002, finishing as runner-up in the Women's Singles. She also took first place in the Women's Singles, Women's Doubles and Women's Team events at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Later, under coach Kong Linghui, a former Chinese Olympic and world champion, Guo made substantial progress in skills, tactics and on-spot performance. In the 2007 World Table Tennis Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, she won the Women's Singles after defeating top world table tennis players Zhang Yining and Li Xiaoxia. She also partnered up with Wang Liqin to win the Mixed Doubles.

As a left-handed player, Guo's loop drive, fast attack and fierce stroke skills will hopefully make her showing in this summer's Games a milestone in her career.