"I hope to improve my singles this year and get more results at the Asian Games."
The 2022 Winter Olympics have come to an end, and the table tennis arena is about to become lively. It is reported that Zheng Yijing, a fierce rival of national table tennis and the world runner-up in Chinese Taipei, has decided to leave for the Middle East today (February 24) to participate in the WTT Oman Race and compete with chen Xing, the world champion of national table tennis.
For the upcoming first battle of the Year of the Tiger, Zheng Yijing said that she will pay more attention to the singles event. So the question arises: last year, Zheng Yijing and Lin Yunru cooperated in mixed doubles to achieve good results, won the Olympic bronze medal, and now the two are also the world's number one mixed doubles combination, so why should she focus her career on singles?
Zheng Yijing everyone is more familiar with, one of the athletes with a relatively high level outside the main force of the national team, has won the Silver Medal and Bronze Medal in the World Cup singles, the Bronze Medal in the Olympic Mixed Doubles, the level is very good, although there is still some gap compared with Ito Mimakoto, but it is enough to be called the first-class master of the foreign association.
Zheng Yijing was mainly known for her singles results in her early years, but in recent years, her cooperation with Lin Yunru has allowed the mixed doubles performance of the two to develop by leaps and bounds, but their current careers in this area must face an unavoidable problem, that is, the age gap is somewhat large.
Zheng Yijing was born in 1992 and Lin Yunru was born in 2001, a difference of more than 9 years, which makes the golden stage of their careers overlap much. Before that, we actually saw two similar mixed doubles pairs, that is, Xu Xin / Sun Yingsha (difference of 10 years), Mizutani Hayabusa / Ito Mishimasa (difference of 11 years).
However, Sun Yingsha did not play with Xu Xin in the Olympic Games in the end, and now she is also fixed with Wang Chuqin of the same age group with mixed doubles; while Mizutani Hayabusa/Ito Mishimasa, despite winning the Olympic gold medal, soon disintegrated, because the 32-year-old Mizutani Falcon retired.
As far as Lin Yunru and Zheng Yijing are concerned, the best time for them to cooperate is around the Tokyo Olympic Games, when Lin Yunru is thriving, and Zheng Yijing is not a very old veteran, and everyone's collocation can also play a better effect. But after the Tokyo Olympics, Lin Yunru is becoming more and more mature, and Zheng Yijing's physical condition will only get worse and worse, and it is only a matter of time before she parted ways.
Therefore, for the Chinese Taipei team, it is very important for Lin Yunru to find a new young partner as soon as possible, not to mention that Lin Yunru's recent singles performance has also regressed significantly, so it is also wise for him and Zheng Yijing to practice this project more, but the problem now is: the tree wants to be quiet and the wind is not stopping.
In the newly announced mixed doubles list of the first WTT Grand Slam Tournament, Lin Yunru / Zheng Yijing still topped the list, because they are now the world number one combination - because the international qualification is closely related to the world ranking, So Lin Yunru / Zheng Yijing still has to take on the mixed double responsibility of their own team: if they don't play, other combinations may not even be able to qualify!
In fact, most of the teams are different from the national table tennis, they do not have so many talents to choose from, so the main athletes have to "use" the infinite cycle to maximize the value. But it is foreseeable that Lin Yunru will have to change partners sooner or later, and the more he drags on, the more troublesome it is, so who can take over Zheng Yijing's class? Then let time give us the answer!