Russia wins friendship match agains China

The friendly character of the match between the two national teams was reflected in a high number of draws. The men had a drawing rate of 76% (19 games ended peacefully, six had a winner) while the women had a drawing rate of 64% – 16 of the 25 games ended in a draw, an unusually high drawing percentage for a women’s event. However, it has to be noted that most of the games were hard-fought and everything but peaceful draws.

While the match between the Russian and the Chinese men had been always balanced, the Russian women had been dominating the Chinese from the very start. However, in the fifth round the Chinese managed to score two wins: Tan Zhongyi won against Anastasia Bodnaruk and Shen Yang won against Valentina Gunina – however, only with a lot of luck and a lot of help by her opponent.

The Chinese team: Coach Yu Shaoteng, Ding Yixin, Gou Qi, Tan Zhongyi,
Lei Tingjie (number one on the girls’ world ranking list) and Shen Yang

The Russian team: Mark Glukhovsky, Katerina Lagno, Anastasia Bodnaruk,
Aleksandra Goryachkina, Valentina Gunina, Natalia Pogonina and coach Sergey Rublevsky
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