World Championships | 5 May 2015

Yekaterinburg next stop of LI Qian and LI Jie

It is self-evident that two babies now playing with two bronze medals from 2015 QOROS World Table Tennis Championships, proud on their mums LI Qian (Poland) and LI Jie (Netherlands), unique Europeans on the podium in Chinese city Suzhou. Two recently paired players, who gave a birth in last year and half, went to China without big expectations, but returned as heroes.

“At the beginning we just wanted to try how can we play together. I didn’t use to play doubles before, thus LI Jie was surprised that I`m doing so well. We didn’t think about medal, just to play good. We enjoyed playing together and that was very important”, said LI Qian, speaking for the website of Polish National Association.

LI Qian already had several big achievements in singles event, like bronze medal from 2011 European Championships in Gdansk-Sopot and gold from 2009 Euro-Top 12 in Stuttgart. But, in last seven years she didn`t participate in the doubles. Whilst LI Jie took two European medals in pairs, with Elena TIMINA, playing in Ostrava 2010 (silver) and in Gdansk-Sopot 2011 (bronze).

“We played great against Mima ITO and Miu HIRANO”, said LI Qian about crucial match that she and LI Jie had in Sozhou (they beat Japanese pair 4:3). “All other games we won easier, until clash against DING Ning and LI Xiaoxia (0:4) who played on unbelievable level. We are not able to train together on a daily basis as Chinese stars do. We can meet only on major international tournaments and it is not enough to oppose them. After first two sets, we started to read better their game, but then it was too late”.

Polish coach Zbigniew NECEK is satisfied how Polish-Dutch pair played: “Our cooperation is so good and some new participation is already planned, including 2015 European Championships in Yekaterinburg (25^th September-4^th October)”.