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Table Tennis Fan Guide Olympic competition dates: Sept. 16-25 Venue: StateSports Centre, Sydney Olympic Park The outlook China has dominated the past three Olympics, as the women won all six gold medals while the men captured four. The finer points Styles: There basically are four styles to competitive table tennis: (1) the defender, who pushes, chops and blocks to let his opponent make a mistake; (2) the pick hitter, who is like a defender but occasionally hits the ball past his opponent when there is an opening; (3) all-out attacker, who goes for kills all the time and basically tries to overpower his opponent; and (4) the looper, the offensive counterpart to the pick hitter. He uses the loop until the ball pops up enough for a kill. Tactics: Short serves to the forehand are difficult to return and against a top player may be the safest serve to get in play. Three- and five-ball attack strategies attempt to end the point by the third or fifth ball over the net. In a three-ball attack, the server attempts to kill the serve return. A typical five-ball attack begins with a serve, then a return, then a loop, return, then a kill. Format: Round-robin play with top 16 seeds in singles and top 8 seeds in doubles proceeding to single-elimination draw. Matches are best-of-five games. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |  | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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