Maybe the project I was focusing on was more niche and getting smaller, falling asleep before 23:00 on Singles' Day night and only seeing a 1-1 score the next morning. Time, suddenly came to the middle of November 2021, there is a real sense of time travel. Take the two hot spots I have been following recently, and talk to you in a way that is no longer popular nowadays.
6 days ago, Zhang Weili lost to Rose, and the game process and follow-up should be known a lot. I want to pull Zhang Weili out, said ni Xialian, a former 58-year-old former national table tennis world champion last night, who reached the women's singles quarterfinals of the WTT Slovenia tournament.
Zhang Weili is actually very remarkable, the first UFC women's world champion in Asia. UFC is an MMA event at the international level in the United States, to put it bluntly, it is a sport that Americans set the rules and they dominate. Of course, the vast majority of modern sports are played and dominated by British, American, and Western countries, which is an objective fact. However, some sports have been completely "conquered" by Chinese, such as table tennis and badminton.
Women's mixed martial arts is still very unpopular in China, because the rules are set by Americans, people have the absolute right to speak, and the main thing is that we are late to carry out this sport. In this sense, Zhang Weili is a pioneer with a leading role in women's mixed martial arts after Li Na in tennis, Ding Junhui in snooker, and Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo in figure skating.
In the highly professional global multi-sport, UFC naturally can not catch up with ice hockey, basketball, American football, tennis and other popular sports, but the income and influence of athletes should be above table tennis and badminton. The main thing is that the market-oriented operation and market-oriented hype of this sport have reached a high degree, which can not only earn enough eyeballs but also allow people engaged in this sport to make money, and earn money while earning a reputation of market significance - Zhang Weili has become a domestic phenomenon-level female UFC star, which is the best example.
58-year-old Ni Xialian, who can also reach the women's singles quarterfinals in the latest international table tennis competition, personally believes that this is Ni Xialian's personal glory, but it is the sadness of this sport, in addition to Chinese almost few foreigners play table tennis, or there are foreigners who play table tennis can play better. Federer and Serena Williams are also at an advanced age and continue to insist on not retiring, but you definitely can't imagine that professional tennis players can continue to win Grand Slams at the age of 45, and can still be active in the first line and enter the quarterfinals at the age of 55.
The WTT Slovenia tournament belongs to the WTT Contender level (fourth level) because the Chinese team and the Japanese team near the Houston World Table Tennis Championships did not send the main team to participate, but the Chinese and Japanese teams still sent players to compete for the training team. Because the proximity to the competition place is relatively close, coupled with the fact that there were too few matches some time ago due to the impact of the epidemic, the players in Europe are basically the first-line or the first-line players.
So what is the pattern of this women's singles quarterfinals? Two players from the Chinese team accounted for two seats, but in fact, including the players from China, a total of six seats were occupied, of which Wang Yidi's quarterfinals would be against Ni Xialian, Singapore's Zeng Jian (former Chinese player) against Sweden's Linda, and China's Liu Weishan against Australia's 19-year-old newcomer Liu Yangzi. Fu Yu (a former Chinese player) playing for Portugal played against Russia's Nova.
In the table tennis project Chinese only has an absolute right to speak in the arena, but in terms of event packaging, operation, and market-oriented development of the project, we are less involved, or we have some attempts but on the whole there is no right to speak. Since last year, the high-level power struggle of the ITTF during the epidemic has been very fierce, but basically nothing has been Chinese, and we can reach some of the stars of the ITTF power level, and we are not interested in obtaining the rights of the ITTF high-level.
Some people say that Ni Xialian is with Deng Yaping, that is, you are too tender. Ni Xialian is a national player and world champion with Cai Zhenhua, Cao Yanhua and Shi Zhihao. Ni Xialian was able to reach the women's singles quarterfinals of international competitions at the age of 58, which is the result of her personal perseverance in taking the sport as fun and hobby for many years. But it also reflects the reality of the withering of talents and the low degree of international competition in the table tennis project from another aspect.
Like Fu Yu, Yang Xiaoxin, Zeng Jian, Lin Ye, Shao Jieni and other "overseas corps" in our traditional sense, most of them were not very well-known when they were in China, or they did not enter the national team, or stayed in the national team for a short period of time and went out, each making a living, fending for themselves. Of course, there is zhang Benzhihe, whose parents went abroad many years before he was born to take root in the local area.
Since the "Tomoya Koyama Incident" in the early 1990s, objectively speaking, in the past 20 years, there has been no national table tennis player who has won the world championship to play in a foreign country, coupled with the traditional table tennis powers, such as many European countries, the overall level has been sluggish for many years, resulting in the challenge of national table tennis in the international arena is getting smaller and smaller. In recent years, Japan has made great efforts in the field of women's table tennis because it wants to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, and this summer's Olympic Games have also achieved considerable achievements - mixed doubles won gold medals, and women's teams won silver medals as desired. But entering the Paris Olympic cycle, the Japanese Olympic Committee is now a bad ass, and it is no longer difficult to continue to invest heavily in the table tennis team, and the future days of Japanese table tennis will be more difficult than in recent years.
The table tennis project must have a bright future, relying on the warm blood packaging of several foreign adults at the top of the International Table Tennis Federation is obviously not enough, after all, they are basically not from the table tennis background, and lack sufficient basic support. National table tennis should produce a figure like Bai Dana of the UFC, using its influence and resources to integrate and lead the development of the sport in a more market-oriented and commercial direction. Maybe this person may be Ma Long, or Xu Xin, or Deng Yaping in the future.
National table tennis can completely relax the restrictions on playing abroad after the national player retires, and now that the domestic life is so good, many people may not necessarily be willing to go out and cross the ocean to "foreign team" after retiring. Even if there are a few people who are willing to play for the foreign association, it does not hurt, such as Guo Yue, she really wants to represent South Korea in the Olympic Games and the World Table Tennis Championships, I believe that now she is not the opponent of Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha, but this relaxation of the policy can also give others a way to live, so that they can use their skills and talents to promote the charm of table tennis and the national ball culture in the new environment.
Zhang Weili went to the United States to fight, just like Miyu Hirano, Tomokazu Zhang, and Mimachi Ito went to China to participate in the competition to "kick the pavilion". Only when we operate the market-oriented operation mode maturely, we will not be surprised that these foreign associations and foreign players will challenge the national table tennis, so as to make the sport more prosperous and lively. When more people are engaged in this sport, can make money and see a bright future, more people will pay attention to and try to engage in this sport.