Chinese Olympic Winners Missing The 2012 Harmony Open (Videos)

The 2012 Harmony China Open is scheduled to take centre stage next week, August 22 to 26 in the Suzhou Sports Centre Stadium. This is the very first World Tour station after the 2012 London Olympics. 

Since the competition will be in China, the strongest team we have right now is expected to grace the tournament in full force, including the recently hailed champions in the 2012 London Olympics, Zhang Jike, Wang Hao, Ma Long, Li Xiaoxia, Ding Ning and Guo Yue. 

This just makes the competition even more interesting as opposing parties in London might once again meet their favourite opponents or their Olympic nightmares. 

However, there is a great possibility that it might not happen in Suzhou. Unfortunately, according to some posts in Weibo, Chinese version of Twitter, the Olympic winners of table tennis, badminton, and diving are scheduled to participate in an exhibition game in Hong Kong on the 25th of August. 

Moreover, the London Olympic delegation are expected to arrive in Hong Kong a day before, August 24 then leave for Macau on the 26th. 

As of now Ding Ning and Guo Yue have already confirmed their participation while there are still no news with regards to Zhang Jike, Wang Hao, Ma Long and Li Xiaoxia. 

Meanwhile, other Chinese players like Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, Xu Xin, Liu Shiwen and Guo Yan might be the defenders of the Chinese Team in the 2012 Harmony Open. Last year's winners were Ma Long and Guo Yan after winning over the reigning world champions Zhang Jike and Ding Ning. 

Guo Yan overcame Ding Ning in a tight 4-3 score while Ma Long  defeated Zhang Jike in six sets. This actually started the amazing winning streak of Ma Long. Too bad, he might not be around in Suzhou to defend his title. 

Ma Long vs Zhang Jike 2011 Harmony Open MS Finals
video kindly shared by ttprovider

Guo Yan vs Ding Ning 2011 Harmony Open WS Finals
video kindly shared by janus770

In addition to the defeats of the reigning world champions, the other highlight was the rather impressive performance of Yan An. He defeated the top seed Wang Hao in the Round 16 and overcame Xu Xin in the quarterfinals before losing against Zhang Jike in the semifinals. Now that there might be vacancies in the lineup of the Chinese Team, it would be better to see Yan An once again in action. 

Yan An vs Xu Xin 2011 Harmony Open MS QF
video kindly shared by janus770

Yan An vs Zhang Jike 2011 Harmony Open MS SF
video kindly shared by janus770

As of now, let's just keep our hopes up for an exciting match from all the players who will participate in the 2012 Harmony Open, after all the tournament has a total of $330,000 worth of prizes in store for all participants.

Photo source: sports.sohu.com