On the afternoon of January 12, Beijing time, the first battle of the 2022 table tennis world, the WTT Düsseldorf Challenge, will be opened in Germany. Although it was the first international event of the new year, the Chinese table tennis team chose to give up, and Liu Guoliang and the coaching staff did not send a single person to participate.
But this is no wonder: in addition to the national table tennis, Zhang Benzhihe, Ito Mimachi, Tian Zhixi and other Japanese and South Korean main forces did not play, and even Germany's top masters such as Bol and Ocharov are also on the list, so the influence of the event can be seen, but the 58-year-old former national table tennis world champion Ni Xialian (now Luxembourg athlete) has participated, it is really old and strong, worthy of everyone's attention!
As we all know, the table tennis in 2021 is very busy, because this is the first Olympic Games in history to be held in the same year as the individual World Table Tennis Championships and the National Games, so the athletes of various associations, especially the national table tennis players, need to prepare continuously, and the task is extremely heavy.
However, after the arrival of 2022, the burden on everyone is much lighter, the two most important events - the Chengdu World Table Tennis Championships are team competitions, and the main opponent of the Hangzhou Asian Games is only South Korea (the Japanese have always been less interested), and it is not difficult to win the championship, so under the current situation of the epidemic, everyone can also participate more calmly and selectively, like the WTT Düsseldorf Challenge do not have to care too much.
According to the arrangement, the Düsseldorf Race will be divided into two stops, which will be held from January 12 to 15 and 18 to 20. Among them, the highest-ranked male athlete in the first race is the Austrian veteran Gardos (the 26th player in the world), and the highest ranking female athlete is the German-Chinese star Shan Xiaona (38th in the world).
However, in terms of world competition results, the women's ranking is second only to Shan Xiaona's Ni Xialian (the world's 40th) is the highest "dan position", after all, her old man won the gold medal of the women's team and mixed doubles as early as the 1983 World Table Tennis Championships, and later won the championship of the European competition consecutively, which is by no means comparable to other opponents, and naturally it is the most concerned by everyone.
In general, the Düsseldorf competition is mainly to look at singles competition, doubles is not too much of a particularly noteworthy point, the current list of seeded players has been released, of which the top 4 singles are:
Men: Gardos (Austria), Duda (Germany), Alberto (Ecuador), Montero (Portugal);
Women: Shan Xiaona (Germany), Ni Xialian (Luxembourg), Barazova (Slovakia), Solja (Austria).
So who can laugh last and win the tournament? The answer will be revealed soon, so let's wait and see!