A devastating backhand top spin across the diagonal, from the powerful Josef Simoncik, brought the fourth day of proceedings, Wednesday 26th May 2010, at the Liebherr World Team Championships to a conclusion and a happy conclusion for the Czech Republic.

The beat Chinese Taipei by three matches to two to secure third place in the group behind Korea and Sweden; thus they progress to compete for position one to 12, whilst for Chinese Taipei, they concluded the first stage of proceedings in fifth place ahead of Ukraine and Romania.

Chinese Taipei, Ukraine and Romania progress to play for places 12 to 24.

Josef Simoncik was very much the Czech hero, earlier in the proceedings he beat Chuang Chih-Yuan after Chen Chien-An had given Chinses Taipe the perfect start by overcoming Dimitrij Prokopcov.

The match score level at one-all, Jiri Vrablik defeated Wu Chih-Chi to give the Czech Republic the advantage but Chuang Chih-Yuan responded immediately for Chinese Taipei. He beat Dmitrij Prokopcov to set the stage for Josef Simoncik to face Chen Chien-An; he relished in the challenge and duly succeeded in four games.

Earlier in the evening Korea had confirmed top place in the group with the trio of Cho Eon Rae, Jung Young Sik and Ryu Seung Min inflicting a three-nil defeat on the Ukrainian trio of Oleksandr Didukh, Yeven Pryshchepa and Kou Lei.

Meanwhile, in similar fashion, Sweden finished on a high note to secure second spot beating Romania by three matches to two.

Ovidiu Ionescu beat both Andras Tornkvist and Fabian Akerstrom but that was the sum total of Romanian success. Both Tornkvist and Akerstrom defeated Alexandru Cazacu whilst in the third match of proceedings Robert Svensson overcame Constantin Cioti.

Joy for the Czech Republic at the close of the fouth day’s play and also for the host nation Russia; the trio of Fedor Kuzmin, Alexei Smirnov and Kirill Skachkov overcame the Polish team of Daniel Gorak, Wang Zeng Yi and Bartosz Such by three matches to nil.

They finished the group in second spot level with Poland on points but gained the higher position as a result of beating the Polish outfit.

China secured first place in the group by recording their fifth consecutive three matches to nil victory. The trio of Wang Hao, Zhang Jike and Ma Long proved too powerful for the Italian outfit of Marco Rech Daldosso, Niagol Stoyanov and Stefano Tomasi.

In the one remaining fixture, the French team of Christophe Legout, Abdel-Kader Salifou and Adrien Mattenet posted a three-nil win over the Greek team of Konstantinos Papageorgiou, Panagiotis Gionis and Anastasios Rinotis.

France and Greece finished level on seven points but by beating Greece France gained fifth place ahead of Greece and Italy.