Competitive sports have always been about results.
However, in some sports, sometimes good results do not necessarily mean high popularity, and high popularity does not necessarily mean the best results.
For example, Chinese women's table tennis has high results and popularity, but there are also results that are not the best in that era but the popularity is the highest in that era.
Today, let's take stock of the four most popular players in Chinese women's table tennis in the past 20 years:
One: Zhang Yining
Zhang Yining was born in 1981 and is 43 years old this year.
In the history of Chinese women's table tennis, there have been a total of five Grand Slam champions (Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup singles champions), and Zhang Yining is one of them.
Not only that, Zhang Yining is also the only double Grand Slam winner in the history of Chinese women's table tennis, which means that she has won at least two women's singles championships in each of the three major competitions.
Although table tennis is not a very popular sport in the world, as China's national sport, table tennis is very competitive in China.
Therefore, Zhang Yining's ability to win each of the three major singles championships at least twice is enough to show how strong Zhang Yining was at that time.
Many new fans may think that the national table tennis at that time was not as competitive as it is now, and on the whole, the strength of the women's table tennis of the Foreign Association at that time was not as strong as it is now, but it was not much weaker.
However, if you want to win the singles championship of the three major competitions, the main opponent has always been not the players of the foreign association, but the competition within the national table tennis.
In Zhang Yining's early days, her biggest competitor was definitely Wang Nan.
Zhang Yining entered the national first team in 1996, when Wang Nan had just entered the main layer, and Zhang Yining was a sparring partner for the main force because his playing style was similar to that of Japan's Koyama Zhili (He Zhili).
At that time, Wang Nan and Zhang Yining were both members of Li Falcon's team, so the two still lived in the same dormitory.
After the 1997 World Table Tennis Championships, with the retirement of veterans such as Deng Yaping and Qiao Hong, Wang Nan gradually began to carry the banner of Chinese women's table tennis, and Zhang Yining also attacked Wang Nan's status many times during this period.
For example, in 1999, 2001, and 2003, Zhang Yining lost to Wang Nan twice in the C finals and one semifinal.
After the Sydney Olympics, Wang Nan basically sat in the position of the first sister of women's table tennis, and Zhang Yining basically sat in the position of the top three or even the top two main forces of the women's team, but during that period, she basically lost more and won less when she met Wang Nan.
This situation lasted until the 2004 Athens Olympics, and this year, with Zhang Yining winning the women's singles and women's doubles championships in Athens, she also took over the scepter of the first sister of women's table tennis from Wang Nan.
After that, Wang Nan did not come out to compete for a long time because of a serious illness (thyroid cancer), and Zhang Yining became the number one main force in women's table tennis.
In the 2007 Zagreb World Table Tennis Championships women's singles semifinals, the 26-year-old Zhang Yining lost to the 19-year-old Guo Yue, Guo Yue defeated Li Xiaoxia in the women's singles final and successfully won the World Championships women's singles championship.
It can be seen from this that Zhang Yining was able to get this result, not because the opponent was too weak at that time, but because Zhang Yining was too strong.
Zhang Yining announced her retirement after the 2009 National Games, and later her head coach Li Ying said in an interview that Zhang Yining was still on the rise when she retired.
The reason why Zhang Yining is so popular is not only because of her achievements that far surpass her, but also because her facial expression is very cold when she plays, and she looks very domineering.
In an interview, he also said a lot of golden sentences: "I'm afraid she won't be able to catch it", "As soon as I shake hands, I know she lost"......
Combining these reasons, Zhang Yining can still maintain a super high popularity and popularity on the Internet after retiring for many years.
Two: Guo Yue
Guo Yue was born in 1988 and is 36 years old this year.
It is not so much that Guo Yue is popular, but that everyone has high expectations for her, and in the end, these expectations have become regrets.
Guo Yue began to practice with his father when he was 5 years old, entered the Liaoning Provincial Sports School at the age of 8, and entered the Liaoning Provincial Team at the age of 10.
11-year-old Guo Yue won the championship in the national table tennis trials, and Cai Zhenhua, then the head coach of national table tennis, watched Guo Yue's game at the scene, and said at the time: "This little girl plays ahead of her time, and her brain is lively, which is rare, and she should be promoted to the national team exceptionally." ”
In this way, Guo Yue, who was only 11 years old, entered the national team, and since the establishment of the Chinese table tennis national team, Guo Yue is the youngest member of the national team, and no one has been able to break Guo Yue's record until today.
At that time, Guo Yue was not only strong, the key was that she was competitive, and she didn't look like a small player at all when she entered the national team.
And in the usual training, she always pulls these big players to train together, which leads to many big players being a little scared when they see Guo Yue later, because she is like a little strong who can't be beaten, as long as she loses, she always pulls others to play, just to win back.
With this spirit, Guo Yue entered the main team after a few years in the national team, and she won the women's doubles bronze medal with Niu Jianfeng at the 2004 Athens Olympics, when she was only 16 years old, making her the youngest Olympian in the history of the Chinese table tennis team.
At the 2007 World Table Tennis Championships in Zagreb, Guo Yue partnered with Wang Liqin to win the mixed doubles championship when she won the women's singles championship, and she was only 19 years old this year.
It can be said that before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Guo Yue had already locked a quota in advance (the other one was Zhang Yining), and Wang Nan could only compete with the teenager Li Xiaoxia for the last spot.
In the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Guo Yue, Wang Nan and Zhang Yining won the women's team championship together, and at the same time won the third place in the women's singles.
Although she failed to win the singles championship, Guo Yue was only 20 years old this year, and her career had just begun.
Especially after the Beijing Olympics, Wang Nan and Zhang Yining announced their retirement successively, and Guo Yue became the first person in the women's team in terms of performance and strength.
But who knows, at this time, the head coach of the women's team, Shi Zhihao, began to squeeze out Guo Yue, especially in such a crucial game as the women's team final of the 2010 Moscow World Table Tennis Championships, he let Guo Yue and Li Xiaoxia sit on the bench, and let the younger Liu Shiwen and Ding Ning play.
In the end, the Chinese women's table tennis lost to the Singapore women's table tennis and missed the ninth consecutive championship, but even so, Guo Yue's status in the team has not changed.
Even if Guo Yue participated in the London Olympics as the third person in the team in 2012 and won the women's team championship with Li Xiaoxia and Ding Ning, even if the head coach of the women's team was replaced by Guo Yue's former head coach Kong Linghui after the Olympics, even if it ......
In 2014, Guo Yue announced her retirement, she was only 26 years old this year, and now Ma Long, the world's first men's table tennis player, has not won the World Table Tennis Championships men's singles championship at this age (Ma Long and Guo Yue are the same age, and they are both Anshan villagers).
Guo Yue's talent in table tennis is absolutely rare, and it is even more regrettable that she failed to achieve the Grand Slam and failed to win the Olympic women's singles championship in the end.
Three: Liu Shiwen
Liu Shiwen was born in 1991 and is 33 years old this year.
For a long time, Liu Shiwen's labels have also been sad and regretful, because Liu Shiwen and Guo Yue are rare genius girls in Chinese women's table tennis.
Liu Shiwen has been practicing with her mother since she was a child, and when she was 5 years old, she began to officially practice table tennis with the enlightenment coach Zhang Jingqing.
At the age of 11, he entered the Guangdong provincial team, at the age of 13, he entered the national second team, and at the age of 14, he entered the national first team.
When Liu Shiwen entered the national first team, the leaders of the women's team were Zhang Yining and Wang Nan, Guo Yue had just entered the main layer, and Li Xiaoxia was still the main force on the edge.
In 2007, Liu Shiwen, who was only 14 years old, defeated Li Xiaoxia in the women's singles final of the National Championships and won the women's singles championship.
In 2009, 18-year-old Liu Shiwen defeated Guo Yue in the final of the Women's Singles World Cup to win her first singles world title.
At that time, the media called Liu Shiwen "Little Deng Yaping", and both the fans and the coaching staff had high hopes for her.
A year later, at the Moscow World Table Tennis Championships, head coach Shi Zhihao directly asked Liu Shiwen, who was only 20 years old, to serve as a single in the final, which was definitely very important to Liu Shiwen at that time.
If Liu Shiwen can seize the opportunity, maybe the women's single sister will become her after the Moscow World Table Tennis Championships, and she may even be able to participate in the main competition of the 2012 London Olympics.
But in the end, Liu Shiwen lost two points alone and became the biggest "sinner" in women's table tennis, and after that, the Moscow World Table Tennis Championships became Liu Shiwen's nightmare, and she couldn't even hear the words Moscow for several years.
The impact of this loss was huge, and Liu Shiwen's mentality could not be adjusted for several years, so not only was she a P card player at the London Olympics, but she only participated in the women's team competition at the Rio Olympics.
You must know that at that time, Liu Shiwen was the top seed in the world No. 1 for a long time (up to 33 months), but because of this competition, the coaching staff always thought that Liu Shiwen's psychological quality was not up to par.
Until the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships in Budapest, Liu Shiwen seized the last opportunity and won the first women's singles championship of her career at the age of 28.
This World Table Tennis Championships Ma Long achieved three consecutive men's singles championships, but he did not shed tears for himself, but couldn't help shedding tears when Liu Shiwen won the championship, which is the abbreviation of countless fans.
At that time, the headline of the media was "Ten years of sharpening a sword", but many people don't know how Liu Shiwen has come over in the past ten years.
Winning the women's singles championship at the World Championships, it stands to reason that the Olympic women's singles quota is stable, but at the beginning of 2020, a catastrophe swept the world, and finally the Tokyo Olympics chose to postpone it for a year.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Liu Shiwen finally partnered Xu Xin to participate in the mixed doubles competition, but who knew that what she thought was the most stable event was lost to the Japanese combination Mizutani Hayabusa \ Misei Ito in the final.
It can be said that Liu Shiwen's career is full of tribulations, not so much because she is popular, but because everyone feels sorry for her.
But even in the face of so many tribulations, Liu Shiwen never complained, and in turn comforted those fans who cared about her, how could fans not like such a character?
Four: Sun Yingsha
Sun Yingsha, who was born in 2000, is 24 years old this year.
Sun Yingsha is currently the most popular female table tennis player in China, there is no doubt about it.
In today's Chinese women's table tennis, Sun Yingsha, Chen Meng, and Wang Manyu are the absolute top three main forces, and the results of the three are also the best among the active women's table tennis.
Among them, Chen Meng has won the Olympic Games and the World Cup singles championship, and Wang Manyu and Sun Yingsha have both won the women's singles championship at the World Championships.
In terms of results, there is not much difference between the three, and Chen Meng has a little upper hand, but it was said at the beginning of the article that grades are not the only factor that determines popularity.
Although it is said that Sun Yingsha's popularity has a certain relationship with her results, after all, she is now ranked No. 1 in the world on a fault, and her points far exceed that of Wang Manyu, who is ranked second, and Chen Meng, who is ranked third, have already locked in the Paris Olympics in advance.
But in the editor's opinion, the key factor why Sun Yingsha's popularity is so high is her high emotional intelligence and likable personality.
Sun Yingsha's high emotional intelligence lies in the fact that she speaks very appropriately in every interview, even after winning the coveted championship, she will not speak out of passion (referring to the Tokyo Olympics After Chen Meng won the women's singles championship, she said: My time has finally come, and her popularity has begun to decline from prosperity).
In addition to high emotional intelligence, another point is that Sun Yingsha is not stage frightened at all no matter how big the occasion and how big the leader is, and it can be seen from the video circulating on the Internet that she is very calm and calm whether she is facing the head coach of the national table tennis Li Falcon or the chairman of the Table Tennis Association Liu Guoliang.
These are all things that Sun Yingsha likes, but there is another important reason for Sun Yingsha's popularity, that is, the CP between Wang Chuqin, the main player of the men's team.
In this Internet era, it can be said that nothing can escape the eyes of netizens, and once there is a little clue, netizens can find a series of unknown things from it.
is like Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin, at the beginning, because the two often paired mixed doubles, and Wang Chuqin always pinched Sun Yingsha's face, so the outside world began to rumor that the two might be in love, but at that time, both of them were just teenagers and had little influence.
Later, as the two were promoted to the main force of the men's and women's teams, the relationship between the two became more and more outrageous, and even in the mouths of some netizens, the two had made a private agreement for life.
In this era of high-speed information operation, Sun Yingsha's high popularity may have the factors of the times, but it is more due to her own personality.
In addition to the above four female table tennis players, which female table tennis player do you like?
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