Chinese men's paddlers fare smooth in ITTF Swedish Open first round

STOCKHOLM, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Chinese paddlers started strong at ITTF World Tour Swedish Open men's singles event here on Thursday, as five players have already secured their places in last 16.

Top seed Fan Zhendong eliminated South Korea's Jang Woojin 11-1, 11-6, 11-3, 11-9, and will meet Benedikt Duda of Germany in the second round.

Qualifier Zhou Yu bounced back from a 2-3 deficit after five games to upset Chinese Taipei's veteran Chuang Chih-Yuan through a seven-game thriller.

Zhou will next face fellow Chinese Yan An, who saw off Masataka Morizono of Japan in straight games.

Liu Dingshuo, who also went through qualifiers, shocked Frenchman Emmanuel Lebesson 11-7, 12-10, 11-7, 3-11, 13-11, booking another upcoming all-Chinese clash with Lin Gaoyuan, as the latter eased past Maharu Yoshimura of Japan 4-0.

Second-seeded Xu Xin of China will kick off his campaign at the tournament against Chen Chien-An of Chinese Taipei later on Thursday. His teammate Fang Bo will face Kirill Gerassimenko of Kazakhstan.