With two weeks to go before the opening of the Asian Games in Doha, China's national table tennis team are still being questioned about their squad named for the regional comprehensive events.

Wang Liqin, the world's top male paddler, and his female counterpart, Zhang Yining, are both missing from the Chinese Asiad squad, while inexperienced Hao Shuai and uncapped Chen Qing made up for the top guns' absence.

Liu Fengyan, director to the Table Tennis and Badminton Administrative Center of China, explained that the exclusion of the top players is to provide an opportunity to nurture the younger players.

"The top duo have had a nonstop season and got really tired. They were found out of form in as early as the national championships and the women' s World Cup last month," said Liu after he made the list public recently last Thursday in Shenzhen where the men's national team is undergoing intensive training to prepare for the upcoming Asian Games to be held from Dec. 1-15.

"So for furture good, we decided to rest them during the Asian Games. And that's the second reason we ruled them out of the Asiad squad, besides the moving-over thing for younger players," he added.

Liu's explanation, however, failed to convince all, especially those who remembered quite clearly the disaster four years ago in Busan when the all-conquering Chinese table tennis team failed in the women's team and doubles as well as the men's and mixed doubles.

Many were astonished at the adventurous decision as the authority to China's table tennis had always kept a low profile prior to any major competitions and fielded the strongest squad all the time.

But now, to revenge for the Busan shame or to repeat their glorious achievements is neither the most important in mind for the Chinese paddlers. Their far target is to remain dominant to world table tennis at the Beijing Olympic Games in two years, rather than just making a clean sweep of gold medals of the Asiad as they did at the 48th world championships.

The battle in Doha will be well carried out, however, though there's no easy job as all before. Vetrans Ma Lin and Wang Nan, who each won eight world titles in the last three years, will lead the Chinese table tennis teams and compete in all four events, namely, the men's and women's singles, doubles, team, and mixed doubles.

Olympic silver medalist Wang Hao joined Ma in the men's singles, and will also fight the men's doubles event with teenage Asiad rookie Ma Long, while the quadruple World Cup winner Ma Lin also pairs up with his Olympic gold winning partner Chen Qi for the doubles.

On the women's part, China's supremacy in the team, singles and doubles events would remain unshakable in Doha with the inclusion of Guo Yue, the title holder of world team championships and ITTF ProTour Finals, and Guo Yan, the newly crowned World Cup champion.

"Actually, in the table tennis events, Asian players are almost the world's," said Shi Zhihao, the head coach to the Chinese women's national team of table tennis, citing South Korea, DPR Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Singapore as China's main contenders. "But we are so determined to make a sweep."