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DUSSELDORF, Germany, May 31-- World No. 1 Ma Long opened his singles title defence in style with a comfortable 4-0 victory over Mihai Bobocica at the World Table Tennis Championships here on Wednesday. Ma, also the Olympic champion in Rio, demolished the Italian in straight games 11-9, 11-5, 11-5, 11-5 to set up an second round match against Anton Kallberg of Sweden, who defeated India's Soumyajit Ghosh 4-2. Ma's other four Chinese teammates, Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin, former world champion Zhang Jike and world championships debutant Lin Chaoyuan, all advanced to the second round. World No. 3 Xu was the only Chinese player to suffer some scare en route to the victory. The 2013 World Cup champion dropped two games, including the first one, before winning 4-2 over Belarussian Tomas Polansky. "I feel that in the first match of singles, I had trouble playing openly while the opponent was quite aggressive in his efforts. He is a young athlete that I have never played against before, so there was some potential threat in this uncertainty," said Xu. "By the time we got to the last game, he had a chance of winning the match but did not take control of the opportunity. His excitement on the court became more intense and wavering, especially the second round of falling behind six to one." Local hero and German No. 1 Dimitrij Ovtcharov also fought off tough challenge from Czech Lubomir Jancarik before winning 4-2 (11-9, 11-5, 6-11, 7-11, 11-5, 13-11). | 
