The 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships ended on November 30, marking the first time the World Table Tennis Championships have been held outside of Asia and Europe. After 7 fierce competition days, the Chinese team finally won four championships in women's singles, men's singles, mixed doubles and women's doubles, while the non-Olympic men's doubles lost to the Swedish combination in the semi-finals.
The World Table Tennis Championships were held in the same year as the Olympic Games, which is very rare. Coupled with the fact that the World Table Tennis Championships were held for the first time in the Americas, and the special time for the 50th anniversary of the "table tennis diplomacy" between China and the United States, the 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships is of great significance. At present, the World Table Tennis Championships has formed a "5+2" pattern, that is, 5 individual competitions are held in odd-numbered years and team competitions are held in even-numbered years.
The storm of youth, blowing towards the arena
The lineup of the Chinese team at the World Table Tennis Championships has changed greatly, and Ma Long, Liu Shiwen, and Olympic champion Xu Xin, who have won the World Table Tennis Championships singles championship, are absent from this competition. The new generation of "post-95s" and "post-00s" athletes have become the main force. The national team hopes to train young athletes through competitions such as the World Table Tennis Championships and reserve talents for the Paris Olympic Games in three years.
In terms of the women's team, "post-00s" Sun Yingsha is both a "newcomer" and a "labor model", she entered the final in the 3 projects she participated in, and won the mixed doubles championship (and Wang Chuqin), the women's doubles champion (and Wang Manyu) and the women's singles runner-up. On November 29, Sun Yingsha participated in 4 matches in one day, mixed doubles semifinals, women's doubles semifinals, women's singles semifinals, mixed doubles finals, 4 wins, whether it is the distribution of physical strength or the play of technical tactics, she has achieved the ultimate, a "little devil" who is alive and free.
In the women's singles competition, Wang Manyu first defeated the world number one Chen Meng 4:3 in the semifinals, and in the final, with the same stability and high-quality backhand tearing, the big score was 4:2 against Sun Yingsha to win the women's singles championship of the World Table Tennis Championships. In the last set, the score was 17:15, and the two sides scored a high score and a high level.
In the women's doubles competition, singles final opponents Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha defeated the Japanese team of Hina Hayata and Mimako Ito 3:0 to "reproduce" the results of the last World Table Tennis Championships in Budapest, when the "Wang Sun Group" defeated the Japanese women's doubles pair 4:2.
The Chinese women's singles won the final four, showing the absolute strength in this single event. Olympic champion Chen Meng stopped in the semifinals in both the women's singles and women's doubles.
The men's team's singles and doubles draws are not very favorable, mainly because the players are unevenly distributed, and there is a situation of "half-zone loss" that they do not want to see, but it is a problem for the Chinese team, but on the contrary, it is also an excellent simulation of the Paris Olympic Games. Tokyo Olympic men's team champion and men's singles runner-up Fan Zhendong defeated teammates Wang Chuqin, Lin Gaoyuan and Liang Jingkun to the final, and met 19-year-old Swedish teenager Moregold. Fan Zhendong has shown absolute strength in terms of game experience, detailed handling, offensive stalemate and far-reaching counter-pull, sweeping the opponent 4-0 without suspense.
In the last two World Table Tennis Championships, Swedish male athletes have shown a good level of competition. At the 2019 World Championships in Budapest, Swedish athlete Fark reached the men's singles final and finished second; this year, Sweden's Moregold won the men's singles runner-up. This time, the men's doubles round of 4 came from 4 delegations. The Swedish men's doubles duo Of Falke and Karlsson successively defeated Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan and Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin to advance to the final, and defeated the South Korean team Of Zhang Yuzhen and Lin Jong-hoon to win the men's doubles championship, which was a real championship. In this way, China and Sweden are the two teams that won the championship in this tournament.
It is worth mentioning that 58-year-old Luxembourg "Shanghai aunt" Ni Xialian also showed a "youthful and beautiful" sportsmanship, and entered the women's doubles final four with her partner Denut, winning the world table tennis medal again after 36 years. As an outstanding table tennis player trained in Shanghai, "Aunt Ni" represented the Chinese team in the 37th Tokyo World Table Tennis Championships in 1983 to win the mixed doubles championship, and helped the Chinese women's team win the team championship. In 1985, she teamed up with another Shanghai player, Cao Yanhua, to win the women's doubles silver medal.
Mixed doubles match, beautiful scenery
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the "ping-pong diplomacy" between China and the United States, and it is also the first time that the World Table Tennis Championships have been held in the Americas. The Chinese Table Tennis Association and the American Table Tennis Association submitted an application to the International Table Tennis Federation to allow the Sino-US mixed doubles team to compete in the mixed doubles competition of the 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships, which was approved. They are: Lin Gaoyuan (China), Zhang An (United States), Kanak (United States), Wang Manyu (China).
50 years ago, a fortuitous event opened the prelude to the normalization of Sino-US relations and was hailed as "a small ball pushing a big ball." Liu Guoliang, chairman of the WTT Council and chairman of the China Table Tennis Association, a key figure in promoting the Mixed Doubles Pairing between China and the United States, said that in the 50 years of "table tennis diplomacy", cross-border pairing has become a link between sports and cultural exchanges.
The Sino-US multinational duo Lin Gaoyuan and Zhang An successfully reached the final four by beating the French duo 3:1 in the mixed doubles quarterfinals to win the bronze medal, which is understood to be the first World Table Tennis Medal won by the American team since 1959. Another pair of multinational duos, Kanak and Wang Manyu, reached the mixed doubles quarterfinals.
On the Chinese side, Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin defeated the Japanese team of Hina Hayata and Zhang Benzhihe 3-0 in the mixed doubles final, avenging the loss of chinese athletes to Japanese athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.
Chinese table tennis, shared by the world
Before the World Table Tennis Championships, Liu Guoliang, chairman of WTT and chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Association, was successfully elected as the executive vice chairman of the International Table Tennis Federation. In June, Liu Guoliang gave up his campaign in order to prepare for the Olympic Games wholeheartedly. This time, Liu Guoliang expressed the concept of "Chinese table tennis, shared by the world" in his campaign speech, which means that table tennis cannot belong only to China, it belongs to the world. Only by allowing table tennis to develop in the world, the development of Table Tennis in China will be better. This also reflects China's understanding and responsibility for table tennis.
World table tennis cannot do without China. In the next few years, Liu Guoliang will participate in the work of the decision-making level of the ITTF. Liu Guoliang has always attached great importance to the cultivation of the world's young table tennis players, and he hopes to hold the world's largest youth training camp after the epidemic, so that talented table tennis teenagers from all over the world can gather in China, feel China's table tennis culture and table tennis environment, and spare no effort to jointly promote the development of table tennis. He wants to promote table tennis as one of the largest sports in the world.
The 2021 World Championships in Houston came to an end. I hope that in the near future, the concept of "Chinese table tennis, the world sharing" can spread to all places.
(The author Shen Yuening is a 2021 master's student of Shanghai University of Sport, and Chen Guoqiang, associate professor of Shanghai University of Sport, also contributed to this article)
Column Editor-in-Chief: Chen Hua Text Editor: Chen Hua Title Image Source: Xinhua News Agency
Source: Author: Shen Yuening