"Croatia is a sport-crazy country. It might not be as rich as other European countries, but their love of table tennis is very deep," said Yao on Monday, who chairs the technical committee of the International Table Tennis Federation.

Zagreb is the third European city to host the table tennis worlds since 2000. Paris hosted the 2003 individual championships and Bremen of Germany held the 2006 team events. The other hosts are Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Osaka, Japan; Shanghai, China.

The southern Chinese city Guangzhou will hold the 50th world team championships in 2008 with Japan's Yokohama as a host to the individual championships in 2009.

"If other European countries could be as zealous about table tennis as Croatia, the sport would have been much more developed," said Yao.

Yao said that Dom Sportova in which the world championships will officially open Monday afternoon, is a venue up to the ITTF standards.

"The lighting is good, the floor is good and the organizers are efficient," said Yao.

China is widely expected to sweep all the five gold medals in the seven-day championships, while Croatia counts on aging former World Cup winner Zoran Primorac and out-of-form woman Tamara Boros to deliver a medal.

"China is a much stronger table tennis country than Croatia, but Croatia easily dwarfs China in showcase sports like soccer, volleyball and basketball," Yao said.