Recently, the national table tennis is preparing for the Macau World Cup, after the end of the journey in April, and then into May, the Chinese team still has a very important tournament to play, that is, the WTT Saudi Arabia Grand Slam.
The prize money for this Grand Slam tournament is as high as 2 million US dollars, which is more than the prize money of the Macau World Cup, and the other points are very large. So for the Chinese team, this time it also sent more than a dozen players to participate in this competition, hoping to win the championship of five events.
But just recently, with this tournament just around the corner. Judging from the list arrangement announced by the media, the national table tennis event arrangement for Fan Zhendong has caused a lot of controversy, and many fans feel sorry for him, let's learn more about it.
At nine o'clock in the morning recently, some media exposed the list of participants in various events of the Saudi Arabian Grand Slam tournament this time. Among them, it can be seen that Fan Zhendong, the first brother of national table tennis who has attracted much attention, did not participate in 2 or 3 events as expected by the outside world this time. Because everyone knows that according to the habits of the previous national table tennis coaching staff, Fan Zhendong will generally play in singles and doubles, and sometimes he may also make a cameo appearance in the mixed doubles game. For example, in the previous Incheon Championship, Fan Zhendong partnered with Wang Chuqin in the doubles match.
On the other hand, he will also compete in singles competitions to compete for the title. But judging from the list of participants announced this time, Fan Zhendong's doubles quota has been occupied by Ma Long, who will partner with Wang Chuqin to form a men's doubles combination to compete for the championship of this tournament. Fan Zhendong only participated in the men's singles event this time, so after the decision of national table tennis was announced, many fans felt very surprised. For Fan Zhendong, it means that he did not have the opportunity to win two championships in this competition and achieve a good result of double championships.
From the current point of view, the reason why the national table tennis coaching staff made a consideration is probably because Fan Zhendong's recent state is not particularly ideal, so they don't want to distract him. After all, from last year to now, Fan Zhendong has not won the men's singles championship for more than 200 days, and his overall physical fitness has been affected, injuries have continued, and he has been upset in the recent Incheon Championships one after another, and he has not won the championship. Therefore, the coaching staff hopes that he can focus on the men's singles competition and achieve good results, and he does not need to worry about other events. Therefore, in such a situation, it will be considered to let Ma Long replace him in the men's doubles match. From this point of view, the purpose of the national table tennis coaching staff is good.
But I don't think it's necessarily a good thing for Malone to do that. Because Ma Long has to take care of the doubles competition in addition to the singles and doubles this time, how can a veteran like him be able to take care of so many competitions.
You must know that in the previous Incheon Championship and Singapore Grand Slam tournaments, Ma Longguang competed in singles competitions. Because the competition system is relatively intensive, his whole person is very haggard and tired of coping. In the previous Incheon Championship, the reason why he lost to Liang Jingkun was because of his lack of physical strength, he played too many games in one day, and finally suffered a big loss. This time he will not only have to play singles matches, but also doubles matches. It is very likely that Ma Long will affect the singles match he wants to play the most because of physical problems.
So to be honest, this time the national table tennis coaching staff does have problems in the overall arrangement of the entry list, and I hope they will not have too many accidents in the future.