At noon on January 19, Beijing time, the table tennis WTT Macau Competition ushered in a very wonderful showdown - Zhou Qihao, the main player of the 25-year-old World Table Tennis Championships and the "big dark horse" of last year's direct competition, appeared on the stage to accept the challenge of 16-year-old "little dark horse" Lin Shidong.
Lin Shidong fought very actively, although in the case of a 1-0 lead by the other side 2-1 overrun forced into a desperate situation, but he is still very tenacious to chase 2 consecutive sets to achieve a reversal, the decisive game with a 2-point difference of 11-9 to win the final victory, advanced to the quarterfinals: it seems that the young athletes of the Chinese team have grown faster and faster, it is really worth celebrating! See below for details.
Zhou Qihao and Lin Shidong are both dark horse players in the 2021 national table tennis team competition, the former defeated Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, Wang Chuqin and other world champions, and the latter defeated the Olympic champion Xu Xin, both of them have the technology to impact the main force, but in general, the elder Zhou Qihao is still thicker.
From the point of view of playing style, Lin Shidong's backhand is relatively strong, similar to Fan Zhendong, nicknamed "Little Fat", and Zhou Qihao is an athlete known for forehand, but when facing more familiar teammates, the backhand can also play a lot of fighting balls, so many people think that today's battle Lin Shidong is fierce and less auspicious.
However, after the start of the game, although Lin Shidong had been behind in the first half of the first set, he counterattacked successfully in the second half, making Zhou Qihao make frequent mistakes and finally achieving a reversal of 11-8. However, in the second set, Zhou Qihao quickly gained a foothold and won 11-4 very easily, successfully equalizing the situation on the field, and Lin Shidong was a bit confused.
In the third set, Lin Shidong still played a little messily, but in the second half of the game, he gradually caught up with the score, and even achieved a 9-8 counterattack, but unfortunately he lost 10-12, and the big score was forced into a desperate situation after 1-2 behind! In the fourth set, Lin Shidong played very hard, but after a very good score, his morale was greatly improved, and he immediately won 11-8, successfully dragging the game into the decider.
In the fifth set of the battle, Lin Shidong was full of momentum, and came up to lead the score 5-1, but after exchanging venues, there was a continuous loss of points, and the result was 9-9 equalized by Zhou Qihao. At the critical moment, Lin Shidong won the initiative with his strong backhand technology, and finally locked up the victory 11-9, and eliminated the master brother 3-2 with a big score to get promoted, which is really a terrible afterlife!
The result of today's game is indeed surprising, after all, no matter from all aspects, Lin Shidong does not seem to have the upper hand, I did not expect that he had to fight Zhou Qihao, once again people are impressed: congratulations to Lin Shidong! At the same time, I also hope that he can make faster progress and grow into the top pillar of national table tennis as soon as possible: come on, young people!