Table Tennis - Hong Kong's Wong hopes to revive penhold grip at Rio

While the European-style shakehand grip is now in the ascendancy, Wong decided on the penhold style to emulate China's Wang Hao, who won three consecutive individual Olympic silver medals in Athens, Beijing and London using the technique.

(Reuters)

He also won team gold in 2008 and 2012.

"I hope it will not (die out), I sincerely hope that my success can motivate more players to choose penholder grip," Wong said.

World number seven Chuang Chih-Yuan of Taiwan said the shakehand technique suited the more aggressive style of table tennis being played these days.

"The current generation and how table tennis is going means it is quite difficult to play penholder style. Now every moment everybody is thinking to attack first," he said.

(Reporting by Ian Rodricks in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)