The table tennis event of the Paris Olympic Games, the latest news on April 23 was officially announced, and the special information about the Olympic table tennis event was announced. Article 3 of the singles regulations specifically states that players of the same association should avoid half of the area. Fan Zhendong's current Olympic seed points are not high, this rule is very beneficial to Fan Zhendong, regardless of the Olympic seed ranking, Fan Zhendong's Olympic singles qualification is basically stable, and the pressure is reduced to strive for Saudi Arabia to reach the top.
The Chinese Table Tennis Association will formulate the Olympic selection rules in 2023, among which the women's singles will be temporarily adjusted due to Wang Yidi's high loss rate in foreign battles, and the women's singles selection rules have been optimized to a certain extent. However, there is no clear adjustment in the men's singles, so according to the established selection rules, the recently concluded Macao World Cup will be used as the final result standard.
According to comprehensive statistics, Wang Chuqin ranked first with 22,425 points, Fan Zhendong ranked second with 17,678 points, Ma Long ranked third with 14,535 points, Liang Jingkun ranked fourth with 9,080 points, and Lin Gaoyuan ranked fifth with 4,975 points. Therefore, according to the established selection rules, Wang Chuqin and Fan Zhendong qualified for the Olympic singles, Ma Long qualified for the third person in the team, and Liang Jingkun qualified for the P card.
Due to the previous situation, the Olympic seeding ranking needs to be taken into account, and the deadline for determining the Olympic seeding is July 18, and the world ranking will be used as the standard for seeding at that time.
Fan Zhendong gradually became sluggish in the second half of 2023 and has not fully adjusted his form in 2024, having not gone far enough at the Singapore Grand Slam, Incheon Championship and Macau World Cup to earn not many world ranking points. Although Fan Zhendong was in hot form before July 18, 2023, he won many important tournaments, including the World Table Tennis Championships in Durban. However, these points expire before 18 July and cannot be used as Olympic seeding points.
Because of this, after removing these expired points, Fan Zhendong's actual Olympic seeding ranking is not high, and he is still behind Felix Lebrun and Lin Yunru in other associations, only ranked 6th, and may not get the top 2 Olympic seeds. If the top two seeds in the Olympics cannot be guaranteed according to the non-evasive rules of the previous Olympic Games, then the draw will not ensure the avoidance of divisions, and the players of the same association will face an early civil war.
Now that the official has confirmed the rules of this year, and the players of the same association will automatically avoid the half-zone, then the requirements for the seed ranking of the Olympic selection of national table tennis will be greatly reduced, which can be referred to or not. In this case, the weight of the original rules of the Olympic selection will be heavier, and the Table Tennis Association will give more consideration to the original selection rules and rankings when confirming the singles quota.
From this point of view, Fan Zhendong's situation is relatively stable. Because according to the results of the selection, Fan Zhendong has already won this singles seat. Previously, due to the uncertainty of the Olympic seed rankings, the Table Tennis Association needed to weigh many aspects, and it was inevitable to ensure that the two players were divided into their respective halves. Now there is no need to worry about this matter, and directly avoid it. In this way, there is no other excuse for the relevant parties, since the selection rules have been formulated, it is enough to pass them in accordance with the normal procedure now.
In addition, regarding the authority of the Table Tennis Association, if the rules are not followed, it will cause huge public opinion. For example, the previous optimization and adjustment of women's singles rules has actually been debated some time ago, until Wang Yidi lost to Japanese players again in the Macau World Cup, and more people realized the necessity of optimization, and relevant public opinion turned to the table tennis association again.