TABLE TENNIS: The Australian women’s table tennis team has made a perfect start to its World Championships campaign in Kuala Lumpur, winning both opening day encounters without dropping a match.

The news was not as good for the Australian men’s team, who lost 3-0 to Spain in their opening World Teams match.

The Australian women have been drawn in group three in Kuala Lumpur, and opened the event with a 3-0 win over Congo Brazzaville, before posting a similar scoreline against Nepal.

Olympic hopefuls Vivian Dederko and Melissa Tapper played in both matches, while four-time Olympian Jian Fang Lay played in the opening match before being replaced by NSW’s Michelle Beaumont for the second match.

Australia will next play Estonia on Monday.

Australian coach, Jens Lang, believes Australia should be strong enough to win their group and to advance to Group Two in 2017.

The men’s trio of Heming Hu, David Powell and Kane Townsend found the going tough against Spain in their opening Group Two match, and face both Serbia and Latvia on Monday.

Ross Solly
Table Tennis Australia