The "Good Luck Beijing" 2007 International Baseball Tournament will be staged at Beijng's Wukesong Baseball Field on August 18-23. Among the four participating teams of Japan, Czech Republic, France and host China, powerhouse Japan is determined to win the title, while China, much inferior in strength, has given better performances in recent years than the other two European teams.

Up till now, all the four teams have arrived in Beijing and warmed up for the six-day tournament, which will have 10 matches in two stages of round-robin and elimination series. In the round-robin stage, the No. 1 and the fourth team from the preliminaries will meet in the semifinals to battle for a final slot, and so will the second and the third teams.

As one of the best in the world, the Japanese team made up of professional players has had a sepcial intensified training for this tournament. It seems that while adapting themselves to the Olympic venue in Beijing, they mean to score some beautiful home runs here prior to the Olympic Games in 2008.

Team China has made rapid progress in recent years, finishing ninth at last year's World Cup and taking a bronze medal at the 2005 Asian Championship. However, compared with such a strong team as Japan, the Chinese team still has a long way to go. Over the years the team has never been able to beat its Japanese counterpart. Moreover, a number of key players will be absent from this tournament due to various reasons.

Although the Chinese players are aware it is not likely for them to win this tournament, they threw themselves into training right after they were back from their recent US trip. For them it is not only a pre-Olympic training but a good opportunity to have their young players tempered through battles with teams from different parts of the world.

Europe is not so good at the sport of baseball. The Netherlands has the best European team which placed fourth at the 2006 World Cup. Both Czech Republic and France belong to second-string teams in Europe. While France failed to make last year's World Cup, Czech Republic was a substitute for Greece. Judging by their previous results, they are both inferior to the host team in terms of technical strength.

According to the competition schedule, China will meet France in tomorrow's opening game at 10:30 a.m., while Japan will meet Czech Republic at 6:00 p.m..