original title:What is the state of the main national table tennis players at the Durban World Table Tennis Championships?
Beijing Evening NewsReporter Wang Xiaoxiao
Last night, the WTT (World Table Tennis Professional League) Macau Championship ended. Wang Chuqin and Wang Manyu won the “Derby” respectively and won the championship. The championships held in Xinxiang and Macau for two consecutive weeks are the last “warm-up” before the first-line national table tennis main players go to the World Table Tennis Championships in Durban.
Women’s team: Sun Yingsha’s three strong players will come back
In the first women’s singles final last night, Wang Manyu defeated Olympic champion Chen Meng 4-2 and won her first championship of the season.
Wang Manyu, who suffers from back injuries, has remained undefeated in “foreign wars” this season, but has not advanced to the finals before. In the semi-finals of the Singapore Grand Slam in March, she was swept by Sun Yingsha, and she lost to Chen Xingtong in the quarter-finals of the Xinxiang Championship. Not only that, she also missed all the two World Table Tennis Championship trials due to injuries.
After moving to Macau, Wang Manyu’s condition was not ideal, but he stumbled all the way to the final. After winning the championship, she bluntly said that “the state has recovered a lot”, and said that the confidence brought by the championship and “this tone” are more important than winning the championship itself, and it will also help her find a better state.
Veteran Chen Meng, who was also underperforming due to injuries before, is back in form on this site. This season, she has been upset repeatedly in domestic and foreign competitions. The second round of the Singapore Grand Slam was lost to the Romanian veteran Samara, and she only finished seventh in the second leg of the “straight to Durban”. Although she reached the semi-finals of the Xinxiang Championship, she was swept out by Sun Yingsha. After coming to Macau, although Chen Meng failed to win the championship in the end, he defeated Sun Yingsha 4-0 in the semi-finals, proving that he is still a strong contender for the Durban crown.
And Wang Yidi, who reached the final in the Xinxiang Championship and reached the semi-finals in Macau, has also recovered after experiencing the trough at the beginning of the season. As for Sun Yingsha, who is firmly ranked No. 1 in the world, after completing the “upgrade” in winter training, she has won 24 consecutive victories and 4 consecutive championships in international competitions. She is undoubtedly still the biggest favorite to win the World Table Tennis Championships.
Men’s team: overall advantage but not yet stable
Following the Xinxiang Championship, the Chinese team once again won the top two men’s singles in Macau, and still has a collective advantage in the men’s singles. However, the two contestants who entered the final at Xinxiang station lost in the “foreign battle” in this station, which inevitably cast a shadow over the men’s team’s battle in Durban.
World No. 1 Fan Zhendong’s record this season has been ups and downs: he won the Singapore Grand Slam and Xinxiang Station, and was also upset in the first round of the Star Challenge Goa Station. In Macau, he lost to French teenager Le Brun in the quarter-finals. This is the fourth “foreign battle” he has lost in the past six months, and all four games were lost in the deciding game. As the champion of the last World Table Tennis Championships, Fan Zhendong often lost good games due to his own mentality fluctuations and the impact of his opponents. It is not easy for him to defend his title in Durban.
As for Liang Jingkun, who won the runner-up in Xinxiang Station, after leading 2-0 in the second round of Macau Station, he was overturned by the 13th-ranked Slovenian player Joczyk in the world, and his state needs further adjustment.
The men’s singles final in Macau was between Ma Long and Wang Chuqin. Wang Chuqin is the only player who is undefeated in “foreign battles” among the main men’s table tennis players this season. Especially in the semi-finals, he defeated Tomowa Zhang Ben in straight sets, and finally won the championship in the final of an international competition for the first time this year. Ma Long, who is about to compete in the eighth individual World Championships, has “straight-through” Durban for the first time this year, and has also reached the finals of the Singapore Grand Slam, but he has lost two of the three international competitions to players from foreign associations. However, in the Macau station, the “Dragon Team” performed well. They swept their rival Calderano in the quarter-finals and captured the “dark horse” Le Brun in the semi-finals. They only lost 0-4 in the final. 1 to 11 defeat, the World Table Tennis Championships may be difficult to compete for the crown.