'Pulling teeth from the tiger'

Liu vows to return Team China to the front of the global pack

Liu Guoliang has been lovingly dubbed "the fatty who doesn't know how to play table tennis", but he's still the man most trusted to return China to ping-pong prominence at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

When the 42-year-old stepped down as head coach of Team China in June 2017, it left the once formidable squad facing huge pressure from rivals like Germany, Japan and South Korea and fueled doubts that it would be a vaunted force in Tokyo.