In the early hours of June 17, the WTT Regular Challenge Lagos competition continued.
In the men's singles 1/8 final, Xiang Peng faced India's Taka, the leader of the new generation of the Indian table tennis men's team, 23 years old, currently ranked 122nd in the world.
Xiang Peng, born in 2003, was once regarded as the "future star" of National Pingping. But Xiang Peng, who is 20 years old this year, has gradually become mediocre; Lin Shidong, who is 2 years younger than him, gradually stood out.
Xiang Peng's current style of play seems to have changed little compared to many years ago. The main tactic is still to serve long balls and retreat to hold multiple shots. When the new generation of players are pondering the backhand near the stage, his style of play seems a little "behind".
Although his matches seem to be fierce, he is often scoreless. If you play well, you can play hard with anyone, if you play badly, it is possible to lose anyone, and the stability is insufficient.
In this match, Xiang Peng fell behind twice, equalized twice, and was chased to 8-6 after leading 6-0 in the tiebreaker, and finally won a thrilling victory.
In the first game, Xiang Peng made mistakes continuously, and the score was pulled apart at the beginning, and Taka won the set point 10-3, and finally Xiang Peng lost the first game 5-11.
For a best-of-five match, if the big score is 0-2 behind, it is equivalent to standing on the "cliff edge", so the second game is crucial for Xiang Peng.
In the second game, Xiang Peng still couldn't control his own loss, and the absolute chance ball could be flown away, and he couldn't help shaking his head.
Taka took a 6-2 lead. At 8-5, the rush gave Xiang Peng the opportunity to chase the score, a wave of 3-0, chasing to 8-8 draw.
After saving a set point, Xiang Peng served and scored, and finally won back 12-10, and the big score was 1-1.
In the third game, Xiang Peng made a perfect start 5-1.
I originally thought that the game had entered the rhythm of Xiang Peng, but I didn't expect to suddenly "short circuit", lose 10 points in a row, and lose another game 5-11.
It took only 3 minutes to lose these 10 points, and it was basically lost on the first three boards of hair extensions, which is unbelievable.
However, Xiang Peng has a very good point, that is, he is relatively calm. Even if you lose the last game badly, the next game will not be soft.
In the fourth game, Xiang Peng won the set point 10-4 and won back 11-7, and the big score was tied 2-2.
The tiebreaker gave Xiang Peng a fantastic start of 6-0.
But he has a "previous record" of losing 10 points in a row, and although he looks a lot ahead, he still feels unsafe.
Sure enough, Taka gradually approached the score to 8-6.
At 9-7, Xiang Peng made two key serves.
Xiang Peng's first goal was a short forehand ball, and the opponent rubbed long, and Xiang Peng won this crucial point in the middle and far platform to win the match point 10-7.
Xiang Peng's second ball was still a short forehand ball, but the opponent misjudged and thought that Xiang Peng would send a long ball to grab the attack, and Taka reacted to the return ball, Xiang Peng continued to attack with a forehand, and won the last point strongly, and finally won the last game 11-7, thus winning 3:2 and advancing to the quarterfinals of the men's singles.
Although Xiang Peng won this game, he made many mistakes and needed to summarize many aspects.
I don't know if the head coach Cui Qinglei was in trouble or a little angry, after the game, he and the players on both sides high-fived and left first with his mobile phone and clothes, without waiting for Xiang Peng to go together.
Xiang Peng and Taka really "have a fate", and not long after the men's singles ended, the two sides stood in the mixed doubles semifinals again. It was also a hard fight for five games, and the trend of the match was similar to that of singles. In the end, Xiang Peng/Liu Weishan narrowly defeated Kamaz/Taka 3-2 and advanced to the mixed doubles final. The scores of the five games were: 8-11, 12-10, 4-11, 11-7, 11-9.