Original title: Chinese men’s table tennis encounter challenges
On July 23rd, Beijing time, the WTT (World Table Tennis Professional League) European Summer Series ended in Budapest. In the three events of this series, the Chinese table tennis team sent the main players to participate in two of the high-level competitions, and won 5 championships in 7 individual events.
In these two competitions, the national table tennis women’s team played well, and there was no defeat in the “foreign war”. In the absence of Fan Zhendong, the national table tennis men’s team encountered a lot of challenges and exposed some problems.
As for the women’s team, in the first star challenge, although Chen Meng temporarily retired before the start of the game due to a sudden injury, Wang Manyu, who also played three events, also retired due to injury in the women’s singles semi-finals, while Sun Yingsha and Wang Yidi still remained. Successfully join the finals. In the subsequent championship match, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, and Wang Yidi reproduced their strong performance of winning the top four in the World Table Tennis Championships last year. At the same time, Wang Manyu teamed up with Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin to win the women’s doubles and mixed doubles championships in the Star Challenge, showing great strength in the doubles event, providing more possibilities for Guoping to line up in the world competition.
In general, the national table tennis women’s team has formed a group advantage and demonstrated its superior strength in the international arena.
Compared with the women’s team, the performance of the national table tennis men’s team in this series was not satisfactory. In the absence of world number one Fan Zhendong, the national table tennis men’s team missed the men’s doubles championship in the Star Challenge and the men’s singles championship in the championship.
In the Star Challenge, Wang Chuqin performed well in the singles arena, and even won the championship with Calderano, Lin Yunru and Ma Long, and finally won the championship in the final. In the men’s doubles, Ma Long/Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun/Lin Gaoyuan both lost to the 31st South Korean “new and old combination” Zhao Dacheng/Li Shangzhu, which sounded the alarm for the national table tennis men’s team’s preparations for the doubles.
In the singles-only championship, the men’s table tennis team will perform poorly. Wang Chuqin, who just won the championship, lost to Sweden’s Karlsson in the first round, captain Ma Long lost to Germany’s Francesca by 2 points in the second round, and teenager Liang Jingkun wasted 4 match points in the quarter-finals and lost to 41. Chinese Taipei veteran Zhuang Zhiyuan, only Lin Gaoyuan broke into the top four. In the final, facing old rival Zhang Benzhihe, Lin Gaoyuan was reversed by his opponent with a 3-0 lead, failing to break the “championship drought” that lasted for more than three years.
Compared with the previous Olympic cycles, the national table tennis men’s team has more opponents and stronger strength in the Paris Olympic cycle. When the young players face the top foreign players, they still do not have full stability, and they need to grow as soon as possible. Take on the important task of defending the glory of the country.
Above: On July 23, Lin Gaoyuan (right) in the men’s singles final of the WTT Championship. Published by Xinhua News Agency (■Liu Mingyuan Wang of Sichuan)