On April 18, Beijing time, the 2024 Macau ITTF Men's and Women's World Cups were a succession of upsets. In the women's singles 1/8 finals, Wang Yidi of national table tennis lost to Zhang Benmeihe 1-4 and missed the women's singles quarterfinals. In the men's singles 1/8 finals, Liang Jingkun of national table tennis lost to Anton Carlberg 3-4 and missed the men's singles quarterfinals. In the case of Liang Jingkun's exit, Zhang Benzhihe made a profit in the air and is expected to go straight to the men's singles semifinals.
This year's World Cup adopts a new format, adding the first stage of the group stage, through which the men's singles round of 16 and the women's singles round of 16 will be determined. Then the second stage is the knockout round, each game is a best-of-7 system until the champion is decided. In the women's singles 1/8 finals, Zhang Benmeihe made the first big upset, she eliminated Wang Yidi of national table tennis 4-1 and advanced to the quarterfinals of women's singles. If Wang Yidi loses another foreign war, he will be deducted 3,000 points and basically miss the Paris Olympics.
The men's singles 1/8 finals also broke out a big upset, and Liang Jingkun, who has never played low-end games, created big trouble for himself. Facing Sweden's Anton Carlberg, Liang Jingkun easily won the first game 11-3, but from the second game, he lost his touch and lost three games in a row, with the scores of 8-11, 5-11, 6-11, and Liang Jingkun fell into a desperate situation with a score of 1-3. However, Liang Jingkun was good at reversal, and he overcame the passive situation and chased two games in a row 11-8, 11-9 to drag the match into a deciding game.
It's a pity that Liang Jingkun failed to change his life this time, Anton Carlberg played quite well, Liang Jingkun struggled to catch up in the deciding game, but made too many mistakes, and finally lost the deciding game 6-11, and the big score was 3-4 upset, missing the quarterfinals. Liang Jingkun is in the men's singles 3/4 zone, and Zhang Benzhihe is in the same district, originally expected Liang Jingkun to block Zhang Benzhihe, but Liang Jingkun was upset, which made Zhang Benzhihe profit from the air.
Tomokazu Zhang, who advanced to the knockout round, will next compete with Freitas for a place in the quarterfinals, and once he passes, he will face Anton Carlberg in the quarterfinals, and Tomokazu Zhang has a very good hope of advancing to the semifinals. If he can reach the semi-finals, he will definitely have to play against the national table tennis players, because the only foreign association player in the 4/4 area has been eliminated, and Fan Zhendong, Lin Gaoyuan, and Lin Shidong will definitely have to go through a hard battle no matter who breaks through.
In other matches, Malone eliminated Felix Lebrun 4-2 and faced the winner between Hayasuke Togami and Omar Asal in the quarterfinals. Zheng Yijing eliminated Zhu Qianxi 4-1 and faced the winner between Sun Yingsha and Chen Xingtong in the quarterfinals. Miyu Hirano reversed Tian Zhixi 4-3 and faced Chen Meng in the quarterfinals. Veteran Chen Meng faced some challenges in the first game, but she came back from 6-9 down, and then Chen Meng controlled the pace of the match, and finally won four games in a row 12-10, 11-4, 11-5, 11-4, swept Thailand's Sutasini Savitabat and advanced to the quarterfinals of the women's singles.