Thoughtfulness | Sun Yingsha's 4-year undefeated war was ended! Don't panic, it may be a good thing for Guoping
Men's and women's table tennis world No. 1 lost the gold medal on the same day. Compared with Fan Zhendong's internal competition in China, where Lin Gaoyuan was lost, Sun Yingsha's defeat to Japan's Miyu Hirano caused a little anxiety among fans. In the context of Japan's vigorous development of table tennis and preparation for the Olympics, how will their progress affect China's position in the table tennis arena?
Written by Yu Ruiyin
Editor丨 Feng Xiao
Just over a month before the end of the Durban World Table Tennis Championships, Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha - two Chinese players who were crowned men's and women's singles champions on the same day and ranked first in the ITTF rankings - lost on the same day.
At the WTT Zagreb station, which ended last night Beijing time, Fan Zhendong was reversed 3-4 by teammate Lin Gaoyuan in the men's singles final, and unfortunately lost gold, but after all, this is only a "civil war" to lose; Sun Yingsha also fought hard in the women's singles final for 7 games, losing to Japan's Miyu Hirano, who was big on her side, which made some fans not very happy - the new generation of "big devils" who have not been defeated in 4 years has capsized at this station?
But Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha did not have time to drown in regretful sighs, because Ljubljana stood today to play, and the Chinese men's and women's teams were all playing as much as possible. The advantage of intensive top-notch events is that the opponents who have just emerged on the front foot and the grudges they have forged are exchanged on the back foot when they have the opportunity, without waiting for a long 4 years.
Caption: Losing to Miyu Hirano to end many years of "undefeated foreign wars" is not a bad thing for Sun Yingsha.
Lin Gaoyuan, who defeated Fan Zhendong, although he plays the role of "pressing the line into the main force" every competition, he is also a familiar name for domestic table tennis fans. The just-concluded Durban World Table Tennis Championships lost to Ma Long in the 1/4 final, and the competitions in the past 6 years were basically played out by "their own people", but this time they beat the little fat in the adjustment period after winning the World Table Tennis Championships in the final, which can be regarded as "changing his life against the sky".
It is Miyu Hirano who defeated Sun Yingsha, which deserves to be mentioned. This young girl who was born into a Japanese table tennis family in the millennium is actually an excellent portrayal of the saying "debut early". In 2014, when she was under the age of 14, she partnered with Mimato Ito and won the women's doubles championship at the German Open, becoming the youngest women's tour world champion in history; In the six months from October 2016 to April 2017, she took the three "youngest" titles of World Cup women's singles champion, Japanese national women's singles champion and Asian Championship women's singles champion – a feat that was just one day before her 17th birthday.
However, Hirano's career has a bit of a taste of high and low, and in the past five years, except for the ranking with the Japanese women's team, he has not achieved anything in the competition for the rest of the time, and the world ranking has also fallen to 20th. The reason, of course, is not unrelated to the premature emergence of the Chinese team. At the 2017 Asian Championships, she won the championship from the top 8 with three Chinese main players, Ding Ning, Zhu Yuling and Chen Meng, Liu Guoliang, who had just been promoted to the head coach of the national table tennis table, watched her play live for the first time, and couldn't help but sigh: "Hirano has surpassed all previous Japanese players in terms of advanced playing style and formed system, and even in direct confrontation with us young athletes." She relies on strength, not the upset we say, and we really have to face it objectively. ”
Caption: Hirano debuted very early, but since 2017 it has been a bit "high and low".
But once thoroughly studied by the "fat man who does not understand the ball", it will be difficult for the new foreign players to maintain their ability to challenge Chinese players. Hirano met Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen (2018, 2019 World Table Tennis Championships) and Sun Yingsha (2018 Youth Olympic Games) in the competition after that, and it was difficult to take advantage of it. It was not until the Singapore Grand Slam in March this year that she defeated Wang Yidi after a long time of low-key that she regained the feeling of playing China's top players (but soon lost to national table tennis sparring partner Zhang Rui). Until this time, she has defeated three Chinese players in a row since entering the top 8, Liu Weishan, Qu Man, and Sun Yingsha, and after 6 years, she has come back to "three strings of one".
Among the fans who cheered for Sun Yingsha on social platforms, there was a representative voice: "In the past five years (referring to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games meeting), you are in the light, and she is in the dark." Indeed, although Hirano has Liu Jie, Zhang Cheng, Wang Rui (Nakazawa Rui) and other Chinese table tennis coaches to assist her, she herself briefly came to the table tennis super exercise in 2017 after her debut, but in recent years, in the process of the Japanese table tennis team growing into the strongest opponent of national table tennis, Hirano does not pose a substantial threat like Mimato Ito and Hina Hayada. Two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, she only won the runner-up of the women's team as the third runner-up. This victory over Sun Yingsha is a wake-up call for the national table tennis - the strength of foreign opponents also has a "periodic law", and the secret of playing Pingye will be updated!
This is actually not a bad thing for the national table tennis that is about to compete in the Paris Olympics in more than a year. After losing a mixed doubles gold medal in the Tokyo competition in 2021, although the national table tennis won 7 gold medals in the World Table Tennis Championships in the past two years, the external challengers are still fierce. In October last year, the Xinxiang World Table Tennis Championships, the women's singles were not shocked, and it was not easy for Wang Chuqin to win 4-2 in the final against Zhang Benzhihe, and Fan Zhendong was blocked by Ochalov from the final four, which made the national table tennis alert that the European tiger is still not to be underestimated; In the Asian Cup in Bangkok in November, women's singles Wang Yidi broke through to win the championship, while the men's singles played by Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Chuqin did not reach the final four...
Caption: Fan Zhendong lost to Lin Gaoyuan 3-4, and "Little Fat" is also in an adjustment period after winning the World Table Tennis Championships.
As far as the talented young Chinese players have to "roll in" for the quota of participation in each competition, lamenting that "it is easier to win the world championship than the national championship", the threat of "outer roll" brought by the world's masters has never dissipated in the seemingly calm process of winning gold. The existence of some opponents has indeed made the national table tennis experience a visible decline in results (such as the end of the last century until the Athens Olympics men's events have missed many major competitions), and more is to let the national table tennis quickly form a targeted plan, relying on actual combat to implement adjustments, the threat of "outer roll" into "internal roll" power, so as to always maintain the dominance of the table tennis dream team.
Judging from the results of this year's Durban World Table Tennis Championships and other competitions in the Paris Olympic cycle, not only Japan, South Korea, Chinese Taiwan, Germany, Sweden and other traditional opponents still maintain full resilience, such as Egypt (Omar Asar), Portugal (João Glardo), Denmark (Anders Lind), Brazil (Hugo Calderano), Slovakia (Tatina Kukulova) and even Puerto Rico (Adriana Diaz) and other previously unknown representative teams in the table tennis world. There are also players who are among the top 16 or even 8 in individual events. While making the World Series more exciting and diverse, it is not difficult to find the shadow of Chinese table tennis players and coaches "foreign aid" behind their players.
This is certainly beneficial for the popularization and promotion of table tennis around the world. As for losing gold on the same day for two world firsts in a competition, if it can be called "anxiety", then the sooner such "anxiety" comes before the most critical Paris Olympics, the better. Because of the efficiency of quickly formulating and adjusting response strategies for key opponents, it is no secret that we may wish to let the masters who have dared to wrestle with the national table tennis in the past few decades to show up.