On January 12, Beijing time, the International Table Tennis Federation Group, the Chinese Table Tennis Association and the Chengdu World Table Tennis Championships Organizing Committee jointly confirmed the date of the 2022 World Table Tennis Team Championships, which will be held from April 17 to 26, 2022. The venue will be held at the newly established Chengdu High-tech Sports Center, which was completed last year as a modern, multi-functional and top-of-the-line gymnasium.
This World Table Tennis Championships is a team event, a total of 40 teams will participate, and the national table tennis team will send 10 teams to participate, which are 5 men's teams and 5 women's teams. Among them, in the women's team, veteran Liu Shiwen is basically difficult to have a chance to compete.
Previously, in the single event of the World Table Tennis Championships, Liu Shiwen took the initiative to withdraw, and the 5 women of the national table tennis who played out will win the top five of the women's singles of the World Table Tennis Championships at that time, locking in the gold and silver bronze medals in advance, Wang Manyu won the women's singles championship, Sun Yingsha was the silver medal, the other three were Chen Meng, Wang Yidi and Chen Xingtong, the 5 people's competitive state was outstanding, Sun Yingsha partner Wang Manyu's women's doubles also won the championship smoothly, only from the state of the players, Liu Shiwen is basically difficult to compete with these 5 people, and is expected to miss the World Table Tennis Championships team competition.
On the other hand, the men's team still needs veterans Ma Long and Xu Xin to play, in the single event of the World Table Tennis Championships, the national table tennis men's team played poorly, of which the men's doubles did not win the gold medal early, behind the men's singles Fan Zhendong won the championship, the young player Zhou Qihao was out early in the second round, Lin Gaoyuan and Liang Jingkun played extremely unsatisfactory, and only the young general Wang Chuqin played a stunning performance. In this case, if the men's national table tennis team wants to maintain the competitiveness of the team event, the return of Ma Long and Xu Xin is indispensable, and it is expected that Ma Long, Xu Xin, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun will play.
After Ma Long and Xu Xin played the Olympic Games and the National Games and the Domestic Table Tennis Championships before, they repeatedly stressed that they would not choose to retire, especially Xu Xin, who clearly said that they would continue to fight, emphasizing that if they could not win the national table tennis, the new young people would choose to retire. Considering that Ma Long and Xu Xin's competitive status is still at their peak, they definitely have the ability to contribute to national table tennis. Ma Long and Xu Xin have both played in the first team of the national table tennis since 2006 and have been playing for the national table tennis for 16 years.
Of course, the replacement of the national table tennis men's team has been urgent, in a sense, after Fan Zhendong won the National Games men's singles championship, the World Table Tennis Championships men's singles championship and the World Cup finals men's singles championship, the national table tennis men's team should have entered the era belonging to Fan Zhendong, but at present, in addition to Fan Zhendong, only Wang Chuqin can shoulder the heavy responsibility in the international arena, before finding the third or fourth person, Ma Long and Xu Xin still need to persist!
(Lin Xiaoxiang)