Table tennis: Rough draw for Black Bat women

MELBOURNE - New Zealand's chances of repeating their Manchester table tennis teams bronze nosedived when they were drawn in a deathly group yesterday.

The Black Bat women's four-strong group includes top-ranked Singapore, Canada and Uganda.

Singapore are short-priced favourites to defend their gold medal, particularly with world No 3 Li Jia Wei in their ranks, while the fourth-ranked Canadians are also rated highly.

New Zealand still have a fair chance of advancing to the classification stage as the top two teams go through, along with the two highest-rating third-placed teams from the four pools.

Without retired lynchpin Li Chunli, New Zealand are more vulnerable. Her younger sister Karen Li will carry much of the load, with support from Annie Yang, Sophie Su and 14-year-old Jenny Hung.

The New Zealand men have fared better, with Brad Chen, Peter Jackson, Andrew Hubbard and Shane Laugesen ranked second in their pool below Nigeria.

The other teams are Malaysia, South Africa, Mauritius, Maldives and Vanuatu. With only the top two teams advancing, the match against Malaysia shapes as a crucial one.

Men's and women's competition begins with two rounds of matches tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand badminton team have been left in the dark regarding their draw for the individual competition starting next week.

Confusion over world rankings has caused the delay, with the draw not to be made until at least tomorrow.

The teams competition begins, with New Zealand in the same relatively lightweight group as Australia, Uganda, Kenya and Jamaica.

- NZPA