On the evening of April 19, Beijing time, the table tennis WTT Macau Championship ushered in a focus showdown, the national table tennis Grand Slam Ma Long appeared, and the English star Picheford who had defeated himself and Xu Xin and was named by Liu Guoliang crossed the move, but Ma Long refused to be upset, and eliminated his opponent 3-1 in four games to advance to the quarterfinals.
In the WTT Xinxiang Championship that ended a few days ago, Ma Long was the only national table tennis player who lost to athletes from foreign associations, and now the Macau tournament has encountered certain difficulties, I hope he can withstand the pressure and impact the championship: Come on!
Pichford was born in 1993, which is not young, but he was delayed for a long time due to depression in his early years, and it was not until after 2018 that he gradually rose, defeating Ma Long, Xu Xin, Zhang Benzhihe and other famous players, and was regarded by Liu Guoliang and the Chinese table tennis team as the opponent of the "first group" of the men's singles at the Tokyo Olympics.
If you look at the results, Picheford is quite slumped, has not won any decent championships, and many games are out early, but he is the kind of athlete who has the strength to win any player, but he can't fight to the end, so Malone still has to be careful.
Sure enough, after the start of the game, Pichford very cleverly used his super backhand to break through Malone - he understood that Malone was a strong forehand athlete, once sideways would show forehand gap, so he seized the opportunity to break through a single point, the effect was very good, but Malone changed very quickly, quickly became familiar with Picchefford's routine, and then won the 12-10 comeback.
In the second game, Malone fell into passivity again, and the opponent played consecutive luck balloons, and his mentality was also affected to a certain extent, and finally failed to save the defeat, losing 8-11, and the two sides returned to the same running line.
In the third game, Malone came up again and dropped two points, but this time he fought back faster and won again 11-6. In the fourth game, Malone maintained his advantage and ended the battle 11-8, sealing the victory 3-1 and eliminating Pitchford to advance to the top eight.
From a technical point of view, Picheford only has a big backhand threat, and other aspects are full of loopholes, unless the state is good to the sky, how to play the backhand, it is still difficult to beat a super first-class master like Malone, and this is the fundamental reason why his results are delayed: once or twice good state is normal, it is too difficult to always maintain good form, Kim Ze-so probably has a deep understanding of this.
Congratulations to Malone for making the cut, and look forward to his later performances becoming more and more brilliant: Come on!