The first battle of 2022 national table tennis, WTT Macau, will kick off on January 19, before that, the official website of the World Table Tennis Federation shows that there are at least 9 world champions participating in the national table tennis, namely Ma Long, Xu Xin, Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, Wang Chuqin, Liu Shiwen, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Sun Yingsha, but did not mention Lin Gaoyuan's name.
But not long ago, the promotional video of the Macau Tournament flowed out, the 9 world champions just mentioned have appeared, and Lin Gaoyuan has not been absent, becoming the 6th national table tennis player to appear on camera, it seems very promising to participate in this competition, which is really good news!
Born in 1995, Lin Gaoyuan has been the main athlete in the National Table Tennis Tokyo Olympic Games cycle, and has participated in international competitions such as the World Table Tennis Championships and the World Cup for many times, and won the team championship gold medal.
However, in the selection of the 2020 Busan World Table Tennis Championships, Lin Gaoyuan regrettably was brushed off and fell out of the main ranks. But then the Busan World Table Tennis Championships were cancelled, and Ma Long and Xu Xin announced that they would give up participating before the 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships (Liu Shiwen also made the same choice), so Lin Gaoyuan returned to the top five in the team.
If you don't count Ma Long and Xu Xin, Lin Gaoyuan is currently about fourth in the team - Lin Gaoyuan is currently significantly inferior to Fan Zhendong in all aspects, his singles results in the competition are not as good as Liang Jingkun, his age and recent status are not as good as Wang Chuqin's, and the only thing he can surpass is the more unstable Zhou Qihao. And if you count Ma Long and Xu Xin, Lin Gaoyuan will not be in the top five.
No wonder that when Lin Gaoyuan's name did not appear in the relevant reports of the WTT Macau Competition, some people speculated: could it be that the veterans Ma Long and Xu Xin want to return, and Lin Gaoyuan will stand behind? Now this view seems to be unconvincing, and Lin Gaoyuan is still expected to participate in this competition.
But then again, this Macau tournament does not have any points, nor is it a regular event of WTT, so whether Lin Gaoyuan participates or not cannot indicate his next development direction, and the Chengdu Team World Table Tennis Championships in April 2022 is the focus of everyone's attention: if Ma Long and Xu Xin are absent again, then Lin Gaoyuan's main position can be temporarily stabilized.
However, everything has to rely on himself to really rely on himself, as an athlete who is about to turn 27, the golden playing time left for Lin Gaoyuan is running out, how to make more breakthroughs before becoming a veteran is the big problem he faces next, otherwise in the case of China's table tennis talent, there will be new people coming out to stand up to him at any time: Come on!
So can Lin Gaoyuan really appear on the battlefield of this Macau match? Let's wait and see!