Pressure, immense pressure lay firmly and squarely on the shoulders of Tang Peng early in the afternoon of Thursday 28th February 2008 at the Evergrande Real Estate World Team Championships in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Lose and the likelihood was that Hong Kong would finish their Men’s Championships group schedule of matches in fourth place and thus be destined to compete in the second stage of proceedings for places 13 to 24; win and the hopes of first place in the group, a direct passage to the quarter-finals was still a possibility.

Tang Peng, who will be in action at the forthcoming LIEBHERR Men’s World Cup to be staged in Verviers, Belgium from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th October 2013, duly won and Hong Kong eventually secured a place on the podium at the conclusion of proceeding.

They finished all smiles with a bronze medal draped from their necks.

Daunting Task
The contest in question was against Belarus; the European country led by two matches to one, with Tang Peng set to face the redoubtable Vladimir Samsonov, the odds were stacked against the Hong Kong man.

In the heat of battle he won, levelled the match and with Li Ching beating Vitaliy Nekhvedovich in the concluding contest, a quite remarkable recovery was completed.

High Jumper

Certain occasions are cemented in the mind, for me it is the height Tang Peng jumped when securing victory over the Belarus maestro; if he could have summoned the adrenalin, he would have had an outside chance of a medal in the high jump at the ensuing Beijing Olympic Games.

Perhaps Outdated
Born on Wednesday 4th February 1981 in the city where the 2008 Olympic Games were so successfully staged, Tang Peng has a style that is quite unique and may now be considered somewhat outdated.

Shake-hands grip, he uses reversed smooth rubber on the forehand and short pimples on the backhand; he is the player of world status to adopt this combination. Nowadays with the diameter of the table tennis ball being 40 millimetres as opposed to 38 millimetres when Tang Peng was first introduced to the sport; the ball logically travels slower and as the power of the world’s leading players has increased, the surface is not favoured for the male attacking players.

Wang Tao the Last
Other than Tang Peng, the last shake-hands grip player of note to adopt the combination was China’s Wang Tao, left handed and opposed to Tang Peng who is right handed, but in reality his career came to a close after gaining the silver medal in the Men’s Singles event at Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996.

In the final Wang Tao was beaten by Liu Guoilang, who maintained the time honoured Chinese tradition of using short pimples on the forehand and attacking like fury. Of course, pioneering the modern day pen-holder backhand, he was very different to Wang Tao and by the time the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 had been completed, the career of Liu Guoliang was nearing an end

Not Favoured for Pen-Holders
Furthermore, of the illustrious pen-holders who have followed Liu Guoliang – Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Xu Xin – none have used short pimpled rubber. In Verviers, Tang Peng is very much alone.

Married to Tie Yana, the career of Tang Peng started in his native China; he became a member of the national team and competed in three tournaments on the ITTF World Tour in 2002. In Korea and Poland he reached quarter-final stage of the Men’s Singles event and the second round in Denmark.

National Team
However, he was not able to command a regular place amongst the elite of China and disappeared from the international scene until 2005 when he reappeared in the colours of Hong Kong at the German Open in Magdeburg.

Ever since that date he has been a regular member of the Hong Kong National Team; his best Men’s Singles performance on the ITTF World Tour being at the Chile Open in Santiago in 2007 when beaten by Japan’s Kan Yo in the final.

Major Doubles Crown
Defeat in the final in South America but he does have one prestigious title to his credit; in the Korean capital city of Seoul in 2010 he won the Men’s Doubles event with colleague Jiang Tianyi at the KAL Cup ITTF World Tour Grand Finals.

Unique in the combination the racket coverings used and he is unique in the fact that he is the only player on duty at the LIEBHERR Men’s World Cup in Verviers who has represented two different national associatuons in a World Championships.

Ever Present
In 2003 in Paris he represented China in the LIEBHERR World Championships before in 2007 making his debut for Hong Kong in the Croatian capital city of Zagreb.

He has been ever present at the World Championships since 2007 and made his first appearance in the Olympic Games in London last year.

World Ranking
Currently he stands at no.26 on the Men’s World Rankings, having first appeared at no.44 in September 2003.

He reached no.17 in June, July and August 2010, the highest of his career, a position he regained in the first two months of 2011 and later in the same year in July. He has maintained a top 50 Men’s World Ranking since October 2007.

Third Appearance
The LIEBHERR Men’s World Cup in Verviers will be his third appearance in the tournament; he appeared previously in Magdeburg in 2010 and Paris in 2011.

Article by: ITTF - Ian Marshall

Photo by: Ricky Leung