BREMEN, April 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese men easily won their fourth group rival Sweden at 3-0 in the World Team Table Tennis Championships on Thursday as top Swedish players Jan Ove Waldner and Peter Karlsson did not take part in the fight.

    The Chinese team deployed a strong line-up, Wang Liqin, Wang Hao and Ma Lin, to face Sweden, one of Europe's strong teams.

    But the latter strategically sent three relatively weak players, Jens Lundq vist, Robert Svensson and Par Gerell to play.

    Chinese men's team coach Liu Guoliang said after the games that he was not surprised at the Swedish line-up, because China had expected two possibilities from the Swedes.

    The first possible was that both Waldner and Karlsson would stage a hard fight over China, defending champions, but Liang said if they lost, it would hurt them both physically and psychologically.

    Playing dead hard against China in group matches was not worth it for the Swedes, Liu said.

    The other scenario was the one they were, Liu noted, adding that this was their coach's strategy, a good one.

    In following matches, It would be likely for the Chinese and Swedes to encounter, Liu asserted.

    So far, China beat at straight sets their four group rivals, Romania, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.

    They will fight their last group rival Italy on Friday.

    The Chinese women team finished first in group matches and directly entered the second stage.

    Other group winners, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong of China also directly went into quarter-finals.

    Friday, China will play the winners between Singapore and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, while South Korea will fight Belarus or the Czech republic, depending on who will come first later Friday in position fighting contests.

    Japan will play the winners between Hungary and Croatia; Hong Kong will to play winners between Austria and Germany. Enditem