by Wade Townsend

Thursday 9th February saw the second day of trials for places in China’s squad heading to the Liebherr 2017 World Table Tennis Championships has ended, and for Liang Jingkun it couldn’t have finished on a sweeter note. The twenty year old was able to score wins against both Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin in his final matches on day two of the trials. The only hiccup was a 2-1 loss to Yan An. Jingkun is now well in contention for a top place finish.

There was further disappointment for Xu Xin, as he was also unable to to see off Fang Bo, going down 2-1.

Four players are now sitting on five wins and two loses.

Zhou Kai, the leader at the end of day one, was only able to pick up one win and now finds himself sitting middle of the pack.

However, Kai will be kicking himself as he had every chance to notch up a win against Fan Zhendong. Fan was trailing 0-5 in the deciding game before calling a timeout. Whatever monologue Fan gave in the corner it seemed to work; soon the score was reduced to a one point deficit. Fan was able to take the game 11-9 and is one of four players leading the table.

With another six matches still to come, a top eight finish is within everyone’s reach. But it is not going to be easy. Consider the results of Shang Kun, who less than three weeks ago finished second at the Hungarian Open. So far he has only one win to his name.

Representing China; put it up there with climbing Mt. Everest. Then again, more people have climbed Everest…

Check out the full standings after day two below.