Belarus, who has not enjoyed the best of fortunes in the men’s event at the Liebherr World Team Championships in Moscow, completely turned the tables on the morning of Wednesday 26th May 2010.

They beat the team that has really attracted the attention on the first three days of competition, Portugal; not only did they win, they won in convincing style recording a three matches to nil victory.

On the first two days of competition, whatever befell Portugal turned to gold, vital fifth game duels went their way by narrow margins; on the third day of competition they experienced a narrow defeat at the hands of fourth seeds, Hong Kong, but on the fourth day of proceedings, nothing went right.

The second match of the duel, after Vladimir Samsonov had overcome Marcos Freitas, saw Tiago Apolonia face the stalwart brick wall defensive skills of Evgueni Chtchetinine.

During the contest João Monteiro was dismissed from the bench by the umpire, whilst a disputed edge ball in the fourth game went the way of Evgueni Chtchetinine. The latter incident clearly affected the concentration of Tiago Apolonia who like Marcos Freitas suffered a four games defeat.

The effect was a major momentum switch in favour of Belarus with Pavel Platonov gaining in confidence as the duel progressed to emulate his compatriots and record a three games to one win.

Certainly the win recorded by Evgueni Chtchetinine over Tiago Apolonia was vital, especially as on he opening day, Tiago Apolonia had beaten the North Korean defender Jang Song Man.

“Yes, that’s true”, said Alexander Petkevitch, the Belarus Men’s Team National Coach. “But, Evgueni is much different to Jang Song Man, Evgueni chops the ball much harder, Tiago could not kill the ball, he could not finish the point; sometimes he was in too much of hurry and made mistakes.”

The errors forced Tiago Apolonia into a safety first mode but realising that the ball was rarely going to speed past, Evgueni Chtchetinine was more than comfortable with the situation.

One of the greatest problems playing Belarus is Vladimir Samsonov, he has the ability to record two wins in a match against virtually any team in the world; so succumb to another member of the Belarus team and the pressure mounts.

However, for Pavel Platonov, he entered the arena with his team leading by two matches to nil and he had Vladimir Samsonov to follow; so the pressure was off, or was it?

“I selected Pavel for the match instead of Vitaly Nekhvedovich, Vitaly was a little down after losing to North Korea yesterday”, explained Alexander Petkevitch. “I know Pavel really wants to play, he played well against Chen Weixing in the match against Austria; he is now the same level as Vitaly so if he plays well he raises his chances of selection.”

Well, against João Monteiro, surely he has proved his worth. Joao Monteiro stands at no.43 on the current ITTF World Rankings, Pavel Platonov is at no.260!

The result means that in Group D, Belarus, Portugal and Austria are tied in second place with six points each behind fourth seeds Hong Kong who have eight points. Singapore and North Korea share fifth spot with five points each.

Hong Kong made top place in the group certain by beating Austria by three matches one with Robert Gardos the one Austrian winner; he defeated Li Ching in the second match of the contest.

However, wins for Tang Peng and Li Ching over Werner Schlager plus success for Jiang Tianyi in opposition to Stefan Fegerl secured a Hong Kong win.

It was the fourth win of the tournament for Hong Kong whilst for Singapore it was their first. They beat North Korea three-one in a contest which started well for the North Koreans.

Kim Hyok Bong beat Gao Ning but that was the sum total of North Korean success. Cai Xiao Li defeated Ri Chol Guk, Pang Xue Jie justified his inclusion in the team instead of Yang Zi by defeating Kim Nam Chol with Gao Ning bringing matters to an end with victory over Ri Chol Guk.