The Chinese national team's trials for the World Table Tennis Team Championships ended its first day of competition with Xu Xin and Sun Yingsha getting past Ma Long and Ding Ning 3-0 in the mixed doubles event in Shenzhen on Wednesday.

A total of 24 players have been competing across the men's and women's singles as well as the mixed doubles. The winners of the singles will head to Busan in March, vying for the prize money of 1 million yuan (about 143,000 U.S. dollars) each. Xu and Sun beat Fan Zhendong and Gu Yuting in the first round, then they got past Ma and Ding in the final 11-9, 11-8, 11-8, and will be in South Korea when the event begins on March 22.

World No. 3 Ma Long said after the narrow defeat, "I would like to say that we didn't play too badly today because we were leading at the start of all three games. After that, we didn't keep the advantage, and failed to win the match point."

Meanwhile, world number one Xu Xin remarked, "We played well in the two games thanks to our speed and quality of shots. In the mixed doubles, the vital part to win the game was when we were leading. We should focus more on the women's contest. Even though we won the title, we still need a lot of improvement in the future."