On March 22, the World Table Tennis Federation issued an announcement that the official announcement had just participated in the main national table tennis squad of the WTT Singapore Grand Slam and officially withdrew from the next Doha Star Challenge, and top masters such as Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha and other top players would return directly from Singapore to rest, and the national table tennis team would send many non-main players to continue to participate.
In the Singapore Grand Slam competition, the national table tennis team won all 5 championships. Among them, Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng won the men's and women's singles championships respectively, Ma Long and Wang Manyu won the second place in the men's and women's singles respectively; Sun Yingsha/Wang Chuqin won the mixed doubles championship, Sun Yingsha/Wang Manyu won the women's doubles championship, and Fan Zhendong/Wang Chuqin won the men's doubles championship. Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha are all double crowns in hand.
In terms of world rankings, the three golden flowers of women's table tennis finally won the top three in the world, among them, Chen Meng returned to the world first, Sun Yingsha retreated to the second place in the world, and Wang Manyu surpassed Ito Mimako and jumped to the third place in the world. Moreover, the 4 places for the Asian Games singles have also been released, belonging to Fan Zhendong, Ma Long, Chen Meng, and Sun Yingsha.
In terms of results and goals, the main national table tennis squad has successfully completed all the tasks in Singapore, so it is also justified to withdraw from the Doha Star Challenge.
Qin Zhijian, secretary general of the Chinese Table Tennis Association and head coach of male table tennis, announced this important decision, and explained: Many of the main athletes have spent a lot of physical strength and energy after the recent intensive and high-intensity competitions, expressed their willingness to rest, in order to avoid athletes fatigue and participation caused by injuries, combined with changes in the global epidemic, external risks of the journey, etc., so the Chinese team chose to participate in the Singapore competition absolute main force and Olympic champions directly back to China for recuperation.
A total of 16 players participated in the Singapore Grand Slam: Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin, Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin, Xiang Peng, Lin Shidong, Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, Liu Shiwen, Wang Yidi, Chen Xingtong, Ku Man, He Zhuojia, and thus withdrew from the Doha Star Challenge.
At present, the national table tennis team has sent more than 20 players to participate in the WTT Doha regular challenge, including Zhao Zihao, Zhou Qihao, Yuan Licen, Fan Siqi, Shi Xunyao, Yang Huijing, Zhang Rui and others, and they will continue to participate in the Star Challenge. When the main force does not come, can these young generals and non-main players hold up the banner of national table tennis?
In fact, there are also many foreign top masters who are absent from the Doha Star Challenge, such as Zhang Benzhihe, Ito Mimachi and other Japanese main forces do not come to participate, the more well-known masters are Hugo Calderano, Lin Yunru, Francesca, Du Kaixuan, Feng Tianwei and other people, depending on whether the non-main force of national table tennis can launch an impact on them. In terms of strength, the men's team is difficult, and the women's team has hope.