The biggest change in the world rankings for the second week of 2024 is that Tomokazu has slipped to 10th place. Now Zhang Benzhihe has 1720 points, 100 points more than Lin Shidong, who is ranked 11th, and may be surpassed at any time. It can be seen that Tomokazu Zhang must frequently participate in international competitions at present, otherwise it is a matter of minutes to be squeezed out of the top ten in the world.
Since Tomokazu Zhang became famous, he has never had the current sense of crisis. A very important reason is that in the past year, Tomokazu Zhang has not won a singles championship in international competitions of any size or large. Lin Yunru, who was at the same time, at least defeated Ma Long in the Frankfurt Championship to win the championship, and got a lot of points to keep his position in the top ten in the world.
It is very depressing for today's Zhang Benzhihe, who always encounters the main force of national table tennis in advance in the game, and it is too difficult to win. In the past year, Tomokazu Zhang was actually going downhill, otherwise it would not have been possible to go without a championship in singles for a whole year, and he was also suppressed by Hayasuke Togami in the domestic arena.
Has the little motorcycle lost its engine power? He has not lost his upward power, but has been almost studied by the national table tennis players. Tomokazu Zhang has entered the adult stage, and his skills are almost finalized, and now what he needs to improve is the soft power of the game. If you can't improve in the soft power link, it is difficult to win just by hitting hard.
Tomokazu has also reached a crossroads in his career, and if nothing changes, he will continue to fall in the rankings. In fact, after a period of high glory, players will inevitably be familiar with the style of play by their competitors. And how to get through this bottleneck period is particularly important.
From this point, it can be seen that the veteran Ma Long is not easy, Ma Long is not the most technologically advanced, but why has he always maintained the highlight of his career? It is because Ma Long is a player whose strength and skills are compatible, and he perfectly combines soft and hard power, because the strength of the duel between the masters is almost the same, and the competition at this time is the player's adaptability.
And Malone is a smart type who plays and has a super ability to read the game. So there is only one Ma Long in the table tennis world, and he is still the target that other players want to catch up. Today's Fan Zhendong takes Ma Long as the target to catch up, so Fan Zhendong, who has a very strong playing style, suddenly learned to play control the ball.
Now Fan Zhendong is kneading his own skills, the original Fan Zhendong was a violent style of play, but now it has become a little softer. He just wants to be like Ma Long to achieve both rigidity and softness, but now it has always been in the breakthrough stage, and it is still in the period of technological transformation. In fact, this is a change in style, Fan Zhendong has also changed his skills for several years, and has not yet found a real breakthrough.
The finals were another challenge for Fan Zhendong, and it was a pity for fans to be defeated by Wang Chuqin in the finals. The better the competitors, the greater the challenge for Fan Zhendong, but Fan Zhendong is still in the leading position in the rankings this time.
Fan Zhendong's current total points are 7455 points, and Wang Chuqin's total points are 6470 points, and the difference between the two is nearly 1000 points. Ma Long, ranked third in the world, has 4,810 points, more than 2,000 points less than Fan Zhendong. It can be said that Fan Zhendong has consolidated the current points and ranking advantages, and does not have to worry about being surpassed by Wang Chuqin for the time being.
But there are a lot of matches at the beginning of 2024, and every next game is not to be missed for Fan Zhendong. Otherwise, the points advantage will be caught up by teammates, and Fan Zhendong's draw group in the finals is relatively good. Except for the first round, when Darko created pressure on Fan Zhendong, Fan Zhendong did not encounter too many obstacles in the next two games.
Fan Zhendong still has to continue to lose weight and increase his speed advantage, and now young players face Fan Zhendong with fast forehand and backhand connections to impact. Although Fan Zhendong struggled to face this kind of speed impact, this is the current situation of competition. As Fan Zhendong gets older, it is inevitable that he will be impacted, and it is normal for players to experience a decline in their level.
In the face of the impact, how Fan Zhendong can keep his former advantages has been put on the agenda of his career. Although this road is quite difficult, Fan Zhendong has to persevere. The main reason is that his Grand Slam dream has not yet been realized, and since the national table tennis readjusted the coaching team last year, Wang Chuqin has received the guidance of Grand Slam coach Xiao Zhan, indicating that he will take the initiative in this Olympic cycle.
The best time for Fan Zhendong to win the singles championship in the Olympics is still in the 2021 Olympic Games, although he is also the minister of Conglong in 2017, but there are too many heroes in 2017, and Ma Long at that time also supported Liu Guoliang. Therefore, for Fan Zhendong, the competition in national table tennis has always been one-on-one, and Wang Chuqin came from behind to get the blessing of the Grand Slam coach, which also came from Liu Guoliang's adjustment.
And the veteran Boll is still leading Dusseldorf to win the German Cup despite being in his 40s. Bol narrowly defeated Darko 3-2 in the final, and the two sides played 2-2 in the first four games. Bol rejuvenated the level of a veteran in the deciding game, starting 8-0 and finally winning comfortably 11-2 in the deciding game to help his team win the championship.
Bol is really a legend in the table tennis world, and he is still insisting on it at such an age. Although he rarely competes in international competitions, he has focused on the league in recent years. It can be seen that Bol is still enjoying his career in table tennis, and hopes that this veteran will continue to create miracles.