On January 20, Beijing time, the second match day of the WTT Macau Championship, veteran Liu Shiwen ushered in the first match of the women's singles, against the powerful Wang Yidi, the last time the two played each other was back to the 2019 Qatar Open, which is also Liu Shiwen's first appearance since the Domestic National Games. Wang Yidi's latest world ranking is 5th, higher than Liu Shiwen, before the World Table Tennis Championships women's singles event, Wang Yidi won a bronze medal, and Sun Yingsha's duel was a five-to-five open situation.
In the first set of the game, Liu Shiwen quickly entered the state, the serve and returned the ball directly scored, played a 3-0 start, followed by 6-1, constantly occupying the initiative, after a mid-to-close platform of the pull board speed round, Liu Shiwen directly hit the score to a 10-5 lead, and finally Liu Shiwen won the first set 11-6, leading 1-0.
Entering the second set, it was Wang Yidi's turn to take the initiative to threaten, multi-board forehand pull attack, so that Liu Shiwen could not defend, Wang Yidi played a 5-1 start, at this time Liu Shiwen has been unable to solve the problem of the backhand can not catch Wang Yidi's forehand attack, resulting in continuous backwardness, the score was beaten to 9-3, although Liu Shiwen chased 6 match points in a row, but Wang Yidi still won this set at 12-10, and the big score was 1-1.
Come to the third set, the two sides continue to stalemate, you come and go, 3-3 start, play to 6-6, 7-7, the score fell into a stalemate, after a round, Liu Shiwen constantly converted the forehand and backhand return ball, with a more ferocious return to take points, to achieve a 9-7 lead, Wang Yidi did not want to show weakness by grabbing the serve to chase 10-10 draw, at this time both sides with the attack to score points, Liu Shiwen by changing the rhythm of the serve, direct serve score, the score hit 12-11, and finally 13-11, Liu Shiwen won the third set, The big score was 2-1.
In the fourth set of the tournament, there were more mistakes in the early stages of the two sides, Liu Shiwen relied on a strong board speed to continuously score points, hitting a 6-3 lead, and in one of the rounds, Liu Shiwen's rapid counterattack made Wang Yidi look admired, and the veteran proved that he could still play. After the score came to 7-4, Liu Shiwen continued to appear simple return ball out of bounds, resulting in Wang Yidi scoring 5 points in a row, and then Wang Yidi took advantage of the victory to chase and get the innings, at the critical moment Liu Shiwen showed her ability again, played an extremely sharp angle of the counterattack score, and then served to score, save two innings, chase 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, the two sides could not stand each other, but in the end Liu Shiwen relied on a stronger backhand counterattack ability to win the third set 14-12. Liu Shiwen eliminated Wang Yidi 3-1!
For Liu Shiwen, returning to the field after a few months of rest, against the world's No. 5 Wang Yidi can also form a suppression, which perfectly shows the strength of the veteran, Liu Shiwen definitely has the strength of the world's top players. After the game, Liu Shiwen modestly said that she was very lucky to be able to play, and she did not expect to win. Humble Jujube believes that he can achieve good results in this Macau Competition! Looking forward to the veteran's follow-up performances!
(Lin Xiaoxiang)