On January 3, Beijing time, WTT Doha Station Men's Finals, Ma Long met South Korean star Zhang Yuzhen in the first round of elimination, in the previous game, the national table tennis has two players advanced to the top 8, namely Liang Jingkun and Fan Zhendong, and the 19-year-old Lin Shidong lost to Qiu Dang 2-3 and suffered a first-round tour. This time, Ma Long played, and the opponent's strength was not bad, and it was destined to be another fierce battle.
After all, when it comes to the finals, every player is eager to go further, including Lin Shidong's regrettable loss before, Fan Zhendong's hard fight to win Dako, Zhang Benzhihe's elimination of Ocharov, and also experienced a tiebreaker, which shows that in this game, the players are very close in strength, and every point needs to grit their teeth and fight down. So for the veteran Ma Long, if he wants to go to the finals or even win the championship, every step is crucial.
Back to this knockout match with Zhang Yuzhen, the scores of the two sides rose alternately in the first game, from 1 to 1 to 3 to 3, and then Ma Long calculated that the opponent was going to turn sideways, and continued to hit Zhang Yuzhen by surprise, leading 5 to 3, and the key point Ma Long served to attack, 9 to 6, and then Zhang Yuzhen tried to attack with a forehand and chased the score to 10 draws, but the veteran Ma Long still withstood it, and scored on the long platform, 12 to 10 to take the lead.
In the second game, Ma Long consciously rubbed the serve and took the initiative to try some changes, but Zhang Yuzhen also did a good job in the control of the first three boards, and the score of the two was still very tight, all the way to 6 draws, but when it came to the key points, Ma Long returned the ball more decisively, taking the lead 10-8 to get the game point, through the change in rhythm, so that Zhang Yuzhen made a mistake in the net again, and Ma Long went to the next city, leading the total score 2-0.
In the third game, Zhang Yuzhen had no way out, but his state was obviously not fully mobilized, and he was seriously suppressed by Ma Long, especially after entering the middle section, the mistakes increased, and finally the Koreans in this game still failed to reverse, the total score was 0-3 and was swept miserably, unfortunately out, and the veteran Ma Long successfully broke into the top 8 stage!