January 6 is the 25th birthday of Zhao Zihao, the famous straight board player of the Chinese men's table tennis team, perhaps because things are rare and precious, even the International Table Tennis Federation has sent sincere wishes on the website, hoping that he can continue to carry forward the straight board play. Zhao Zihao's 2019 results shined, winning the second place in the Austrian Open men's singles, and also participated in the year-end finals because of his outstanding results throughout the year, in which the Austrian Open staged a classic scene of a weak victory over the strong, defeated Wang Chuqin 4-3 to make his teammates lose control of their emotions and was banned, and is currently the world ranking second only to Xu Xin and Hong Kong's Huang Zhenting among the straight players.
Zhao Zihao entered the Chinese table tennis team at the end of 2013, after a short period of training, the technology has improved by leaps and bounds, the 2014 National Table Tennis Championships men's team semi-final upset defeated Shandong's Grand Slam advocate Jike, and in 2016, the National Championships once again defeated the Shandong men's team to help the Shanghai men's team win the championship. Zhao Zihao was the main force of the Shanghai men's team to win the 3rd consecutive championship of the national championship boys' team, and it was Xu Xin and The horizontal board star Shang Kun who were still in the team.
Zhao Zihao got more opportunities to represent the Chinese table tennis team in the International Open in 2019, zhao Zihao lost 2-4 to Zhang Benzhihe in the Bulgarian Open, but the Austrian Open defeated Wang Chuqin, a rising star in national table tennis, causing Wang Chuqin to fall and vent his anger after the game, and finally was banned from the national table tennis internal competition, which also paid a heavy price for immaturity on the road to growth. Zhao Zihao passed all the way to the final in this competition, and finally lost to Fan Zhendong and won the men's singles runner-up, and Zhao Zihao lost to his brother Xu Xin in the year-end finals of that year, losing the straight board battle and missing the men's singles 8.
Zhao Zihao is 25 years old, in the fierce competition environment of national table tennis, not a young junior, but due to the special needs of playing, he has more time as a sparring role in the closed training of various competitions, from 2020 onwards, the national table tennis has reduced the number of international events, only participated in the World Cup, Olympic Games, World Championships and other major competitions, Zhao Zihao is not the main force of national table tennis, nor can it be qualified, it is difficult to appear in the international arena in the future.
At present, there is only one straight board player in the top 20 in the world ranking, ranking 3rd in the world men's singles, and the rest of the all horizontal board players, among the world's 11-30 men's single players, only Huang Zhenting and Zhao Zihao are 2, which also shows that it is very difficult for the current straight board players to stand out among many horizontal board masters, even Xu Xin's main position in national table tennis is not very stable. The inherent loopholes in the straight board backhand are obvious, resulting in many players abandoning the straight board from the beginning of the beginner, looking at the national team, only Xu Xin and Zhao Zihao are first-class, and the main layer of the women's team is not straight board players, from the current development trend of the world table tennis, straight board players are struggling. In the recent WTT Slovenia match, France's young player Alex defeated Zhuang Zhiyuan, giving the outside world a vague glimpse of new hope for the straight board, but he is only 15 years old and needs to be tested by more games.