On March 7, Beijing time, the Chinese Table Tennis Association officially announced the "Selection Measures for Table Tennis Projects to Participate in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (Draft for Comments)", and the selection work leading group headed by Liu Guoliang made preliminary provisions on the selection of asian games participants in September this year.
According to the announcement, all athletes must first pass the individual fitness test to qualify, and among the eligible players, all the players who won the singles championship at the WTT Grand Slam and the top three players in the world ranking team from April 4 to 10, 2022 can qualify, and the highest ranking player born after January 1, 1999 can also be selected!
At present, Sun Yingsha (women's world ranking 1st), Wang Chuqin (men's world ranking 13th) and men's world number 1 Fan Zhendong, born in 2000, have all taken the lead, and veteran Ma Long (men's world ranking 2) also has a chance!
The Asian Games is an international event for the national table tennis key preparation, in terms of importance may be higher than the World Cup, but because the opponent is limited to one continent, and the Japanese players are not particularly important, so the difficulty of winning the championship is relatively small, the selection of participating athletes is not particularly tense, and the coaching staff sometimes does not send the full main team to participate.
However, at present, because it is a critical moment for the replacement of the new and old national table tennis, the lineup of any major competition may have an important impact on the career of young players, and it can also reflect the importance that the coaching team attaches to their cultivation, so fans and friends are also very concerned about the selection method of the Chinese team.
Because the Asian Games will hold 7 table tennis events at the same time, it is not excluded that athletes will participate in 4 games, so the selection coaching team attaches great importance to the physical fitness of the team members, Qin Zhijian, secretary general of the Chinese Table Tennis Association and head coach of the men's team, said bluntly: "Generally speaking, the Schedule of the Asian Games is relatively tight, so the physical fitness is still very critical. ”
On the basis of physical fitness standards, we can also see the significance of several other selection conditions for national table tennis.
The first is the Grand Slam - there is no Olympic Games in 2022, a single World Table Tennis Championship, and the World Cup is not sure whether it will be restarted (even if it is restarted, it is likely to be held after the Asian Games), so the most challenging single event is the WTT Grand Slam, which is why the coaching staff will attach so much importance to it.
As for the world rankings, it is easy to understand: although the rankings do not fully reflect the performance and level of athletes, they can still partially reflect them. Coupled with the fact that the highest ranking players in the national table tennis are all players who have experienced the baptism of various events of all sizes, it is not a big problem to choose them to participate in the Asian Games.
At present, the top three athletes in the world rankings of the two national table tennis teams are: Fan Zhendong (1st), Ma Long (2nd), Liang Jingkun (5th), as well as Sun Yingsha (1st), Chen Meng (2nd) and Wang Manyu (4th). However, Because Malone has not participated in the race with points recently, it is not ruled out that there will be a decline, and this will have to wait and see.
On the issue of age, fans and friends can see the determination of Liu Guoliang and the coaching staff to support young players: the players born after January 1, 1999 are currently only 23 years old, which is a period of rapid progress, and it is also a good thing to participate in the Asian Games, which is not difficult to exercise.
However, some netizens pointed out that this provision is actually "useless", because among the national table tennis players born after 1999, Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu have ranked 1st and 4th in the world, and are also the top 3 athletes in the team, Wang Chuqin is also ahead of most of his teammates in this age group, so the range of choices is very small, basically you can determine that it is two of these three people.
According to the selection method, if the athletes who meet the above requirements overlap and vacate the excess quota, the coaching team also has flexible quotas - it can only be said that the competition in national table tennis is too fierce, and the higher the ranking and the better the results, the easier it is to get more opportunities, and it is still too difficult for non-main players to counterattack!
At present, there are 16 athletes participating in the Grand Slam, namely Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin, Lin Shidong, Xiang Peng, Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi, Chen Xingtong, Liu Shiwen, He Zhuojia, And Ku Man, so who among them can win the singles championship and get the first Asian Games ticket?
Let's wait and see: Come on, guys!