On December 4, Beijing time, the WTT World Cup ushered in the first match day. Fan Zhendong, as the absolute star who made his first matchday appearance in the finale, will face the challenge of German star Francesca in the men's singles quarterfinals. In the end, the winner will make it to the next round, which is the quarter-finals.
Fan Zhendong and Francesca, as world table tennis stars, both participated in the just-concluded Houston World Table Tennis Championships. In the World Table Tennis Championships, Fan Zhendong finally defeated the dark horse Moregold to win the championship, and Francesca also had a record of fighting with Moregold. In the Round of 16 of the World Table Tennis Championships, Francesca was eliminated from the round of 3-4 against Moregod. Therefore, the game has not yet started, and the outside world is unanimously optimistic about Fan Zhendong's victory over the opponent. Sure enough, at the end of the 3-inning match, Fan Zhendong advanced to the quarterfinals with a score of 0 opponents. However, fan Zhendong's process of winning this game was not easy. Fortunately, the chain is not dropped at the critical moment, and it is worthy of being the first in the world.
This afternoon, another group of players in the same 1/4 zone as Fan Zhendong has finished the race. South Korea's Jung Young-sik defeated compatriot Lee Sang-so 3-1 in the civil war to advance to the quarter-finals. Therefore, fan Zhendong will be challenged by Zheng Rongshi in the 1/4 final. Of course, for Fan Zhendong, it does not matter who the opponent is, what is important is to play his own skills. All that's left is to keep moving forward until you win the championship medal, so let's take a look at the game first!
In the first game, Fan Zhendong still entered the state slowly like the World Table Tennis Championships, and did not lead the opponent quickly. Then, still in the middle of the backhand pull, suddenly changed into a forehand mistake to send the opponent to the lead. Fortunately, the strength was here, and the score was quickly equalized to 5-5. After that, Francesca made a mistake in the serve to send Fan Zhendong a point, and Fan Zhendong once again surpassed the opponent 6-5. However, Francesca was not a good stubble either, rewriting the score twice in a row to 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, 9-9, 10-10. Since then, the two players have frequently exchanged innings, which is really wonderful. At the critical moment, Fan Zhendong served directly to score the set point again, and then won the first set 14-12 with a side ball.
Back in the second set, Francesca took the lead but was scored consecutively by Fan Zhendong, who took the initiative 2-0. After warming up in the first set, Fan Zhendong gradually improved his status and quickly changed the score to 6-2. However, Francesca chased the points continuously with a strong pull ball, and completely erased Fan Zhendong's lead, and the two fought to a 6-6 draw. Seeing that Francesca was about to take off, Fan Zhendong used the power of hong huang to win the second set 11-7.
At the beginning of the third inning, the two players set the game on fire by pulling each other from the far platform. Unfortunately, in these several rounds of pulling, Fan Zhendong lost consecutively, and Francesca led 5-0. After falling behind by a big score, Fan Zhendong began to quickly adjust his mentality. Fan Zhendong, who calmed down, quickly regained his form and rewrote the score to 7-8 and only trailed by one point. Subsequently, Francesca called a halt to the game and went to the sidelines to eat bananas to replenish her energy.
Back from the game, both sides scored 1 point each to become 8-9, and Fan Zhendong continued to trail by 1 point. The key moment came again, this time it was still Fan Zhendong who took the initiative, taking 3 points and winning the third set 11-9 in a row, and successfully advanced to the top 8.