China and Korea, the respective first and second seeds in the men’s event at the Liebherr World Team Championships in Moscow, maintained their winning ways on the afternoon of Wednesday 26th May 2010 to confirm top places in their respective groups.

However, both teams did experience tougher examinations than those that had gone before.

Korea beat Sweden by three matches to one, whilst China defeated a spirited host nation, Russia by three matches to nil.

Thorn in the side of Korea was Sweden’s Pär Gerell, he defeated Oh Sang Eun in the first encounter of the contest but wins for Joo Se Hyuk against Jens Lundqvist, Ryu Seung Min in opposition to Robert Svensson and Oh Sang Eun back to form, to beat Jens Lundqvist ended matters in favour of Korea.

Similarly for China there were some moments that gave Head Coach, Liu Guoliang cause to ponder.

Ma Lin beat Alexander Shibaev in straight games before the ebullience of youth was expressed in the guise of Kirill Skachkov.

He extended Wang Hao, the reigning World champion, the full five games distance and at one stage it seemed a sensation be may in the offing.

In the fifth game he led 4-0 before experience told and superiority over the table brought rewards for China as it has done time and again.

China leads the group ahead of Poland with Russia and Greece level in third place on six points.

Greece progressed to joint third place courtesy of a three-nil win over Italy whilst Poland posted a three-one victory over France.

Konstantinos Papageoriou overcame Mihai Bobocica in five games to set the Greeks on the road to victory. Panagiotis Gionis followed the example set by beating Stefano Tomasi in four games, with Dimitrios Papdimitriou concluding matters with a full distance win over Marco Rech Daldosso.

It was a cruel result for Italy who perhaps deserved more than the scoreline suggested and overall it has not been a tournament they remember with great relish.

Four matches, four defeats sees them rooted at the foot of Group A one place behind France who suffered against Poland.

The experienced Christophe Legout salvaged some pride for France by beating Lucjan Blaszczyk in the third match of the fixture but defeats for Adrien Mattenet against Daniel Gorak and Wang Zeng Yi plus a reverse for Abdel-Kader Salifou in opposition to Wang Zeng Yi spelt doom for the tricolore.

Meanwhile, Group B sees Korea in first place ahead of Sweden with Chinese Taipei and the Czech Republic level on six points in third place.

Chinese Taipei recorded a full distance nail-biting win over Ukraine with the contest going to the wire; in the decisive duel with the score in the fixture level at two-all, Wu Chih-Chi beat Kou Lei 14-12 in the fifth game.

Backbone of the Chinese Taipei success was Chuang Chih-Yuan who beat both Kou Lei and Yaroslav Zhmudenko. The two wins for Ukraine came from Yaroslav Zhmudenko over Wu Chih-Chi and Oleksandr in opposition to Chen Chien-An.

Success for Chinese Taipei and a more comfortable success for the Czech Republic, with a three-one win recorded against Romania.

The one success for Romania came froim Adrian Crisan in the first match of the duel, he beat Petr Korbel but wins for Korbel and Dmitrij Prokopcov over Constantin Cioti and for Josef Simoncik in opposition to Ovidiu Ionescu secured a Czech Republic win.