(Photo: sina.com)

For a decade, Liu Guoliang has been mentioned in the same breath with Kong Linghui.
In 1995, the two players helped China claim the world men's team crown and several days later they squared off for the singles title. Although they were less than 20 years old, Liu and Kong had showed they were ready to take on the rest of the world.
Liu is bold and unrestrained while Kong is composed and introverted. Both have won a grand slam of Olympic, world championship and World Cup singles titles. The only other grand slam winner is Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, Liu became the youngest head coach ever on the Chinese team while tenacious King Kong made his third Olympic appearance.
Coaching is one of many job options for retired Chinese athletes. Liu took the coaching job to extend his table tennis career. Trusted by table tennis authorities and his mentors, Liu triple-jumped from assistant coach to coach to head coach. He is compared to an adventurer, who looks at other higher summits once he scales a mountain.
On the eve of China's team final against Sweden in the 1995 world championships, Liu Guoliang asked to be sent on but was refused."As a young and key player, I really wanted to be sent to take on Swedes," recalled Liu. "But from a tactical point of view, the coaching team benched me and I still felt bad about it when the singles competition started."
"China beat Sweden 3-2 and Waldner alone took two points. I beat Waldner in the singles before I made it to the final," added Liu, who in the ensuing five years beat Waldner in all of their meetings.
Liu is regarded as one of the wisest in the business. As a player, Liu played with brains more with brawn and his serves were wickedly deceptive. As a coach, he is good at pinpointing players' strengths and weaknesses and making his words heard and understood. Kong Linghui said he would not be a coach because he was not as patient as Liu.
Liu's grand slam was completed in the 1999 world championships in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, as he won the championship final against teammate Ma Lin although he was not at his best.
Liu said he played over his best as he claimed the Olympic gold in 1996 but in the 1999 championships he just performed 70 percent of his top form. Liu's tactics was to prevent Ma from pulling out his best game when he failed to play his best himself. As the deciding set was tied at 20-all, Liu knew the gold medal was his because Ma tended to choke at clutch moments.
Liu's athletic career wasn't always smooth. In 1999, he failed a drug test but was later clear of doping suspicions after a lengthy battle to prove his innocence. "I feel so relieved," said Liu after hearing the news. "You can hardly imagine what a kind of life I led in past six months."
After a test in a Dutch laboratory suggested an "elevated value of epitestosterone", Liu had been under great pressure. "I didn't take anything illegal, but I didn't know how to explain or convince others. I couldn't sleep well, often jolted awaken by bad dreams," Liu said.
The International Table Tennis Federation ( ITTF) cleared Liu's name after a three-month-long investigation showed "no evidence for exogenous origin of epitestosterone" in Liu's samples and there was "no doping offense".
Liu tested positive on August 8, 1999, the day he won the world singles championship in Eindhoven. One day earlier, he tested negative after taking the men's doubles event with Kong Linghui. ITTF didn't notify Liu of his positive test until October 24, 1999, when Liu was playing in the Austrian Open.
"It was shocking," Liu recalled. " 'You are finished', I told myself. I didn't know what to say, what to do. I called the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTF) and they said they trusted me."
Liu took two unannounced tests by the ITTF investigative officials on February 2 and 7. Both tests cleared Liu, said then CTTA general secretary Yang Shu'an.
"ITTF has used the most advanced method of doping check and they have proved Liu's innocence, " said Yang. Another CTTA official said the world ruling body of the sport had used "IRMS" -- Isotopic Ratio Measurements, to test Liu's samples.
"We've never lost trust in Guoliang," said then Chinese head coach Cai Zhenhua. "We let him play the final of the world team championships because we believe he is clean."
China lost to Sweden 3-2 in the men's final in Kuala Lumpur in February 2000, as Liu lost to both Waldner and Jorgen Persson.
In the 2000 Olympics, Liu shaved his head for a new start and took a singles bronze medal. "That bronze was more important to me than the two golds I won in Atlanta," Liu said.
After the 40mm ball was adopted, Liu was forced to change his rubber and bat. "I couldn't play my best in pushes and drives and was struggling in finding a way out," he said. In the 2001 world team championships, Liu sat courtside witnessing Liu Guozheng anchor the Chinese to a championship win over South Korea.
In 2002, the 11-point scoring system and no-hiding service rules were adopted and Liu knew his career was nearing an end. He officially retired before the 2002 Asian Games. "Guoliang is a perfectionist. He wants to make things perfect and prove his value," said Kong.
Liu's coaching trial in the 2002 Asian Games fell short because of a lack of experience in making decisions for others but he got some credit as Ma Lin claimed the World Cup late in the year. Liu was promoted to head coach in a team reshuffle that took place after the 2003 world championships.
Yet he received two blows on the opening day of the 2003 ITTF Pro Tour finals as world No. 1 Ma Lin and No. 2 Wang Liqin fell in the first round, both having listened to Liu's courtside advice.
"It is a real test for me to be head coach of the Chinese men's team," Liu said at that time. "I need to learn from Cai Zhenhua and other senior coaches."
Cai, one member of China's all-conquering 1981 squad, took the helm of a men's squad in decline in 1991. He groomed his stable and perfected their differing styles which had proved some troublesome to the Europeans.
In 1995, Cai's team snatched the men's team title from Sweden in the world championships in northern Chinese city Tianjin where China clean-swept seven trophies and Liu Guoliang finished second to Kong Linghui in the men's singles.
Cai later gave his job to Yin Xiao when he was promoted as "general head coach". But it was still Cai who called the shots.
Unhappy with Yin's indecision in major events, Cai had planned to replace Yin with Liu Guoliang, who has many adorers in the team because of an enviable record as a player and a pleasant personality.
Beating off the opposition, Cai handpicked Liu as the youngest head coach of the Chinese men's team. Cai had taken the same job at 31.
"Liu has high caliber as a coach," said Cai. "He is resourceful and players admire him because he has won everything."
Being a head coach does have a change to Liu's life.
"I feel lonely sometimes," he said. "When I was a player, I spent a lot of time playing soccer or singing Karaoke with teammates. Now they are shunning me partly because I pulls a long face to look serious."
The biggest test for Liu came in the 2004 Olympics. Newly combined Ma Lin and Chen Qi, who joined the Olympic team through a string of qualifying tournaments, claimed the doubles gold in Athens but Chinese young star Wang Hao fell to South Korean Ryu Seung Min in the singles final.
"I knew Coach Cai was upset but he kept saying kind words to encourage me," said Liu. "It wasn't a bad start for me as head coach as the team swept three out of four golds although Chinese wanted more.
"Fairly good results in 2004 should be owed to Coach Cai, who left a strong team to me.
"To me, real tests will only come after 2004. The team lost the men's singles in the Olympics and that loss will surely motivate us in 2008.
"The team tournaments will be added to the 2008 Olympics and they will be more challenging to the Chinese team. I want to leave judgments of my coaching ability to 2008. "
Liu's mentors Cai Zhenhua and Yin Xiao have both left the Chinese team, one appointed as director of the Chinese Table Tennis and Badminton Administration and the other named as head coach of the Luneng club. "I make my own decisions now and stand up against challenges alone," Liu said.
Unlike Cai, who rules with a heavy hand, Liu has replaced direct orders with regulations and stresses the marketing of the sport. "In the commercialization drive of sports, table tennis is no exception," Liu said. "Marketing makes table tennis prosper. If people no longer care about this sport, the mere number of gold medals will mean nothing."
Liu cherishes his friendship with Kong. "We lived together when I was a player and we watched videos together," said Liu.
"Kong is a good athlete as well as a good man. He has many virtues which I don't have and appeal to me.
"We wish each other well. He kept a low profile when he won the world title in 1995 and I kept low-key too when I won the Olympic gold in 1996. Since I became a coach, I have little time with him but we remain good friends."
Kong looks forward to perfection as an athlete in 2005 and so does Liu as a coach. The two good friends are expected to pull off more pleasant surprises to Chinese table tennis.