On the afternoon of March 12, Beijing time, the table tennis WTT Grand Slam tournament welcomed a heavyweight player, that is, the national table tennis Olympic champion and currently the men's world number one fierce fan Zhendong, and his opponent is Portugal's Apollonia. Although Fan Zhendong was met with stubborn resistance in this battle, he finally laughed 3-1 to the end, eliminating his opponent and winning his debut.
It is worth mentioning that this Grand Slam tournament is the first points singles event that Fan Zhendong and Ma Long have participated in together after the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, so everyone also very much hopes to see the peak duel between them continue to be staged, which is worth paying attention to!
Fan Zhendong is very familiar to everyone, the core main force of national table tennis, the World Table Tennis Championship, the World Cup singles champion, the Olympic singles runner-up, just one step away from the traditional Grand Slam title, the strength is very strong, recently has not lost a foreign war for a long time, and the ranking has always remained the first position in the world.
Apollonia is a 35-year-old veteran whose playing style is different from most European athletes, mainly based on delicate control, and his performance is OK when he is young, but in general he is decent and the offensive threat is average.
After the game began, Fan Zhendong played very fiercely in the first set, and soon took the initiative against Apollonia, and then took the lead 11-8. In the second set, Apollonia was even more demoralized, and the quality of the pull could not keep up with Fan Zhendong at all, and the result was once again a 11-8 score. Since the game was a best-of-five game, Apollonia had been cornered.
In the third set, Apollonia finally won an 8-2 advantage and then pulled back a city 11-5. In the fourth set, Apollonia once again bit the score, and once led the score, but in the end it was still inferior, losing the whole game 9-11, and the "round trip" of the main game was eliminated: it is indeed not Fan Zhendong's opponent, try your best!
From the overall style point of view, Apollonia seems to be closer to the characteristics of the 38mm small ball era, so it is difficult to become a climate throughout the big ball era. Relatively speaking, French athlete Simon is more similar to his upgraded version, so the threat to national table tennis is also greater.
Fan Zhendong's goal in this Grand Slam tournament is naturally to win the men's singles and men's doubles championships, and as mentioned earlier, Ma Long also participated in the men's singles competition this time and has successfully qualified: will the "Battle of the Dragon Fat" be staged again? The answer will be revealed soon, so let's wait and see!