On February 12, Beijing time, a table tennis related news aroused the attention of the Chinese people, that is, the 38-year-old world champion Hao Shuai suffered a fiasco in the Japanese T League, not only lost 1-3 to the national table tennis Zhang Benzhihe, but also ate a "duck egg" in the first set, which was swept 11-0 by the other side!
For this result, some netizens said that it was difficult to understand, and even thought that it was a big cold door, but in fact? To be fair, if Hao Shuai wins Zhang Benzhihe, it is considered to be a cold, and his loss is a high probability event: here is not to belittle the veteran, but to objectively and rationally evaluate the strength of both sides.
The first thing to be clear is that Hao Shuai is indeed a world champion, but he is the world champion twelve years ago , the 2010 team World Cup , Hao Shuai got a valuable opportunity to participate, and then climbed to the top with his teammates. And friends familiar with history know that Hao Shuai at that time was no longer at his peak, after all, he was an athlete born in 1983 and was 27 years old in 2010.
Hao Shuai's rise was in 2003, when he, like Wang Hao, was regarded as one of the most promising new stars in the team, and the two successfully met in the men's singles final of the ITTF Finals. However, Wang Hao, who won the championship, later became the main force of the Olympic champion step by step, while Hao Shuai, who was the runner-up, could not enter the top five main lineups and was roughly in the sixth position of national table tennis.
To be precise, 2003 to 2007 is the peak of Hao Shuai's career, and after the End of the World Table Tennis Championships in Zagreb in 2007, he gradually faded out of the singles project of the World Series, and the 2010 World Cup team competition was not participated in because the core main force of the national table tennis team did not participate, so Hao Shuai could get the opportunity, in other words, although he won the championship at that time, he also did not rank among the top five in the team.
This year is 2022, Hao Shuai is already 38 years old (October birthday), more than ten years have passed since the time when he was in the most beautiful state, and his age wang Hao, Chen Xuan and other people have long retired, and they have not trained in the national team for a long time.
On the other hand, Zhang Benzhihe, who was originally an important opponent of national table tennis, had won most of the world championships except Xu Xin, including Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin and others - we can't just look at the games he lost miserably, but also look at the level when he won, right?
In addition, the environment in which Hao Shuai grew up is far less than Zhang Benzhihe, after all, he was born in the 38mm small ball era and is mainly active in the international arena of the organic glue era, and Zhang Benzhihe began to play 40mm big balls as soon as he was born, and he passed the painful period of several important reforms of the International Table Tennis Federation very early, and the playing style is obviously more suitable for the current era, which is much luckier than Hao Shuai!
Of course, there are also some friends who will be entangled in the score of 11-0, thinking that losing should not be deserved, but it is not uncommon for athletes to be kept clean for a while, not only Hao Shuai, Ma Lin, Ding Ning, Chen Meng and other people have had, sometimes the state is so bad, there is really no way to be confused.
But even so, no one stipulates that being beaten 11-0 is absolutely unsaved, even in the Olympic games, there have been athletes who still win the whole game after a 0-11 fiasco, so we should pay more attention to the mental outlook of the players after suffering heavy losses: Adversity can be encountered by anyone, but it is completely defeated? Or bravely fighting against fate?
Judging from the situation of this duel, although Hao Shuai lost 0-11 in the first set, the play of the next three games was quite normal, two of which were fought to a 9-9 draw, one 11-9 win, a 9-11 defeat, which shows that he was not intimidated by difficulties, but unfortunately he was still better than young people in the end, but how can we ask so much for a 38-year-old veteran?
And judging from Hao Shuai's overall record in the T-League, he has performed very well: he has won 13 games and 10 wins in singles, and has defeated famous players such as Takashi Niwa, Makoto Yoshimura, and Yuya Oshima. Maybe the next time he fights zhang Benzhihe, Hao Shuai will be able to find a way to defeat the enemy, so everyone should still be a little calm and wait and see the performance behind the veteran!