On January 23, WTT held its regular Challenger tournament in Goa, India. Sun Yingsha, Wang Chuqin and other main national table tennis players gave up their qualifications due to training in Hainan to prepare for the team competition of the Busan World Table Tennis Championships.
South Korea fully seized the opportunity of the absence of all members of the Chinese team this time and almost went out of the nest. Here are the stats from the South Korean team in the Goa Stars Challenge:
Men's Singles: 5 people in the main match and 6 people in the preliminaries, a total of 11 people
Women's Singles: 9 in the main match and 3 in the preliminaries, a total of 12 people
Men's Doubles: 3 groups in the main round, 2 groups in the preliminaries, a total of 5 groups
Women's Doubles: 3 groups in the main round, 1 group in the preliminaries, a total of 4 groups
Mixed doubles: 2 groups in the main round, 3 groups in the preliminaries, a total of 5 groups
The Busan World Table Tennis Championships is approaching, but South Korea is not in a hurry to train, but sent so many people to participate in the event in Goa, it can be seen that they are bound to want to achieve an absolute victory in this event, brush up the rankings for their athletes in order to strive for more opportunities to participate, and secondly, it is estimated that they also want to increase the practical experience of athletes with competition training.
After 5 days of hard fighting, the champion of the women's doubles of this tournament was decided at 18:40 on January 27, Beijing time. World No.1s Tian Zhixi/Shin Yubin defeated world No.57 Choi Hyo-joo/Zhu Qianxi 3-1 to win the Women's Doubles gold medal after the Doha Challenger. This pair still has a certain threat to the women's doubles of national table tennis, and they need to pay more attention, the more they fight, the more they dare to shoot, the more they play, the more tacit they play, and the more they play, the more confident they become!
The Men's Doubles title was also decided at 20:50 on the same day, with Lim Joong-hoon/Ahn Jae-hyun living up to expectations 3-0 Germany's Qiu Dang/Francesca to win the title, which was also South Korea's second title in the Goa Star Challenge. In this I have to praise Lin Zhongxun alone, in the Doha regular challenge, he partnered with Lee Sang-so and also won the men's doubles championship, and this time after changing to Ahn Jae-hyun, I didn't expect to still win the gold medal.
After winning two consecutive titles, South Korea began to look forward to gold medals in men's singles, women's singles, and mixed doubles. But it is a pity that the last player of the Korean men's singles, Oh Hyun-sung, lost to Francesca in the quarter-finals, so far, all 11 South Korean men's singles participants have been wiped out. Fortunately, in Women's Singles, Shin Yu-bin defeated teammate Tian Zhixi 3-0 to advance to the semi-finals, while the Mixed Doubles combination of Lim Zhongxun/Shin Yu-bin advanced to the final.
On January 28, the last day of the Goa Challenge, with the women's singles Shin Yubin losing 2-3 to Mittram in the semifinals, South Korea's 12-player women's singles also stopped in the top four, and there was no medal.
Fortunately, they also have a gold medal event - mixed doubles. In the mixed doubles final that started at 18:00, Lin Zhongxun/Shin Yubin VS Robles/Xiao Yaoqian, the Korean combination quickly mobilized itself in the first game, and the opponent was powerless, and directly won the first game 11-2, although the opponent also chased after the opponent in the next two games, there was still a certain gap in strength, and the Korean pair won two games in a row 12-10 and 13-11. Lin Zhongxun/Shin Yubin lost 3-0 and defeated their opponents to win the mixed doubles championship of this station. In the last Doha Challenger match, the South Korean mixed doubles pair lost to the national table tennis pair Wang Manyu/Lin Gaoyuan in the semi-finals.
In the Goa Table Tennis Finals in India, South Korea won three gold medals in men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles. This shows that they do have a certain advantage in the doubles event, but don't be too happy, it is all based on the fact that the Chinese team did not participate. If you want to become a real king, Korea still needs to work hard!