By far the toughest group of them all, Group D of the men's team round robins turned out to be the 'Group of Death' at the 10th All China Games in Nanjing, as 2001 silver medalists Beijing overcame the territory, 2-1, to claim their place in the knockout stages at the expense of Hong Kong . Defending champs Hubei was the other team from Group D to qualify for the quarterfinals after inflicting a 3-0 defeat on Hong Kong earlier on Thursday.

As expected, the other three seeded teams besides Hubei – Tianjin (Group A), Jiangsu (Group B), Sichuan (Group C) – all topped their respective groups to book their places in the knockout stages.

At number one singles, Wayne Wong flew out of the gates and led Beijing number one, Yu Xin-Yuan 5-1 in the opening set before a slight loss of concentration saw the world No. 479 from the capital carve his way back to a level-pegging, 5-5.

Still, the HK number one managed to conjure a break of his own to seal the first set, 7-5.

The last time these two faced each other was at the China F2 Futures in May earlier this year when Yu Xin-Yuan swept to a 6-1, 6-1, opening round victory before he went on to take both singles and doubles titles in Tianjin.

In fact, the Beijing number one had been in good form of late, winning Week 1 of the China Satellite in August and reaching the semis of the ensuing Weeks 2 and 3, before culminating with an astounding straight set victory over Chinese number two, Wang Yu, Jr. (Tianjin), to win the Week 4 Masters title. He also reached the final round of the men's qualifying at last month's ATP Beijing Open before falling to Luka Gregorc of Slovenia in three sets.

However, since coming back from two breaks down to force 5-5 in the first set, momentum had already begun to swing his way, as Yu looked down and out and was having a hard time figuring out a way to deal with Wayne's heavy slice. To his credit, the Beijing top brass came out in the second set with a new-found mental approach and turned the tide completely to lead 5-1 himself. Wayne managed to recover one of those lost breaks but was not enough to resurrect the second set, as Yu duly took it, 6-3.

With renewed confidence in the third set, Yu came alive like a Top-500 player would and dominated proceedings to stake Beijing to a 1-0 lead with the second singles and doubles to follow.

After Thursday's hammering by former Chinese number one, Zhu Ben-Qiang, Hong Kong's Yu Hiu Tung, was in no mood for any potential slip-ups as he was all business-like in seeing off Beijing's number two, Li Jing-Yi, 6-1, 6-2, to level the overall score momentarily at 1-1.

Unfortunately, Hong Kong's duo of Jack Hui and Brian Hung were up against an experienced and accomplished doubles team of Yu Xin-Yuan and 29-year-old veteran Zhang Yu, who together as a pair had already won no less than seven pro circuit doubles titles, with three of those coming this year alone.

Jack and Brian did well to limit the damage to 6-4 in the first set but were simply under too much pressure for too long a period from the experienced and no nonsense play of the Beijing duo, as Yu and Zhang ran away with the second set, 6-0. As a matter of fact, their play was so dominant in the second set that Yu did not lose a point on his serve until his final service game.

Yu Xin-Yuan is a current Chinese Davis Cupper and is still undefeated, going 3-0 in singles and 2-0 in doubles, since making his debut in 2004; while Zhang Yu represented China in Davis Cup play from 1998-2001 and was a singles starter during that period in which all the ties he competed in were of Group I status.

The groupings for the initial round robins were as follows:

Group A: Tianjin, Zhejiang, Shanghai
Group B: Jiangsu, PLA, Guangzhou
Group C: Sichuan, Yunan, Anhui
Group D: Hubei, Beijing, Hong Kong

Results
10th All China Games
Nanjing, China
October 2005

Men's Team Event

Friday (Oct 7)

Group D - Round Robins
BEIJING  defeated  HONG KONG   2 - 1
R-1 Yu Xin-Yuan (Beijing) d. Wayne Wong (HKG) 5-7 6-3 6-1
R-2 Yu Hiu Tung (HKG) d. Li Jing-Yi (Beijing) 6-1 6-2
R-3 Yu Xin-Yuan/Zhang Yu (Beijing) d. Jack Hui/Brian Hung (HKG) 6-4 6-0

Thursday (Oct 6)

Group D - Round Robins
HUBEI  defeated  HONG KONG   3 - 0
R-1 Zhu Ben-Qiang (Hubei) d. Yu Hiu Tung (HKG) 6-1 6-0
R-2 Xie Chun (Hubei) d. Brian Hung (HKG) 6-2 5-7 6-4
R-3 Zhu Ben-Qiang/Liu Bo (Hubei) d. Wayne Wong/Jack Hui (HKG) 3-6 6-4 7-6(5)

* Hubei and Beijing qualified for quarterfinals