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SINGAPORE - It was a change that was not unexpected amongSingapore's paddlers. The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) announced onThursday that Chinese women's world No. 1 Ding Ning will replacecompatriot Guo Yan in the singles event at the London Olympics. The left-handed paddler will join teammates Li Xiaoxia and Guo Yue,the latter of whom qualified for the team event, in the tabletennis giants' bid to retain both the singles and team golds at thequadrennial Games. With the new rules limiting singles entries to two per country, Liand Guo Yan qualified by topping the world rankings in June lastyear. According to an article on the ITTF website, the change isattributed to an injury to Guo Yan, although no details were given. Singapore Table Tennis Association's high performance manager EddyTay was not surprised at the switch though. He said: "It was expected since they fielded the same line-up atthe world championships, which was the last major tournament beforethe Olympics. "After the final, the Chinese press also asked (Chinese coach) ShiZhihao if that was going to be the Olympic line-up, but his answerswere generic." Ding Ning, Li and Guo Yue beat Singapore 3-0 in the World TeamTable Tennis Championships in Dortmund in end-March to regain theMarcel Corbillon Cup, won by the Republic in 2010. The change in top seeds China's Olympic team means they now havetwo southpaws in the line-up - Ding Ning and Guo Yue - a teamcomposition that mirrors that of the 2008 gold-winning trio of WangNan, Zhang Yining and Guo Yue. While Singapore's table tennis officials have previouslyacknowledged their paddlers' lack of familiarity when facingsouthpaws, STTA's Tay said there has not been any change to theSingaporeans' preparations for London. He said: "We have gotten a left-handed sparring partner sincebefore the world championships, and another one will join us duringour centralised training just before the Games. "But we are preparing for every country's players - Japan's KasumiIshikawa is also left-handed, for example - and every style; wealso have sparring partners who are choppers.". We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Liposuction Slimming Machine , Cavitation Beauty Machine for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits RF Beauty Machine.
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