Recently, the national table tennis team has ended the Macau World Cup, and a major team has returned to Beijing, and then arranged to rest, and will return to the team to gather to prepare for the Saudi Grand Slam in May.
This Grand Slam tournament is very important, it is the last world major before the start of the Paris Olympics, so teams from all countries, including national table tennis, attach great importance to it. Among them, the Japanese team, as the strongest opponent of national table tennis, sent 12 main players this time, including the men's team including Tomokazu Zhangmoto and Hayasuke Togami.
The women's team includes Hina Hayada and Mimi Zhang, and six players. Zhang Benzhi and all 12 aces are out of the field, hoping to compete for a luxury prize of $2 million and a wealth of points in this competition, while preparing for the sprint for the Paris Olympics.
So for the national table tennis and Liu Guoliang, the pressure and challenge this time are very great. If you can't achieve good results in this Saudi Grand Slam tournament, it may be very detrimental to the subsequent Olympic journey. Of course, from the current point of view, in order to deal with the Japanese team to send such a strong lineup, the national table tennis coaching staff also showed no mercy, this time sending a full luxury lineup including Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha, and then will snipe the Japanese team to make it difficult for them to fly.
At the same time as this competition is coming, as the Japanese team announced the list of participants for this competition, the national table tennis coaching staff also recently announced the list of this competition, including Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Sun Yingsha, these six trump cards will be out of the nest. In addition, core players including Wang Yidi, Liang Jingkun, Chen Xingtong, and Qian Tianyi will participate in this competition.
This means that the national table tennis not only sent Sun Yingsha, the world's top five masters, but also the top ten or even the top 20 ace players will all be arranged to fight, in order to snipe the masters of the Japanese team, the South Korean team and other teams, and compete for world ranking points by the way. On the other hand, for young players like Lin Shidong, they can also take advantage of this opportunity to play against these masters of foreign associations, improve their experience, and strive for better growth in the future.
It can be seen from the list arrangement this time that the national table tennis coaching staff did not give the Japanese team any face, and sent the strongest lineup in order to send the Japanese team home. Under such circumstances, it may not be so easy for Tomokazu Zhangmoto and Hina Hayada to compete for the championship of the five events in this competition.
For the Japanese men's team, Tomokazu Haramoto was their top seed, but in the previous World Cup match in Macau, Tomokazu Haramoto was swept 0-4 by Lin Gaoyuan. Therefore, in this Saudi Arabia Grand Slam competition, if Tomokazu Zhang has the opportunity to play against the national table tennis again, it is estimated that he will not be able to escape the fate of being kept clean.
In addition, Hina Hayada and Miwa Zhangmoto, as the very powerful core players of the Japanese women's team, were also frantically sniped by the Chinese team in this Macau World Cup. In such a situation, although the Japanese team sent a number of main players, it may be difficult to defeat the national table tennis players in the next Saudi Grand Slam match.
However, it should be noted that although the strength of national table tennis is very strong, don't underestimate Japanese table tennis. Especially Zhang Benmei and this dark horse, it is very likely to cause very big trouble to the national table tennis, so you must be cautious.