The Saudi Arabia Grand Slam tournament has begun to enter the third day of the main event, the third day of the competition has two rounds of singles, the first round of the doubles competition has also been officially launched, mixed doubles, men's doubles and women's doubles are 32 pairs of players to participate, these three days of competition is also very upset. It can be seen that the competition is still fierce.
The most famous upset on the first day occurred in the men's singles, when the seventh seed Lin Yunru was finally eliminated by Zhuang Zhiyuan, becoming the first top eighth seed to be eliminated in this tournament. After entering the third day of the competition, another high-ranked seeded player was eliminated, that is, Liang Jingkun of our national table tennis. She is the third seed in this tournament, which is also a big upset.
Just half an hour after Liang Jingkun was out, a relatively big upset broke out in the women's doubles field, a multinational combination from the women's doubles, Australia's Chinese star Liu Yangzi partnered with our Hong Kong team star Wu Yonglin, the two of them in the first round of the women's doubles, facing the top eight seeds of the Japanese pair Zhang Benmei and Miyu Hirano, and finally defeated the opponent 3:1 and successfully advanced to the women's doubles round of 16.
These two pairs are not usually a fixed combination, and Japan's Miu Hirano and Miwa Haramoto have only started to partner frequently this year, and the purpose of going to the competition is also very obvious. Because these two have already qualified for the women's team at the Paris Olympics, Hina Hayata, as the No. 1 singles player of the Japanese team, will definitely have to take on two singles events, so in the doubles in the team competition, the Japanese coaching staff still has to focus on building the pair, so they will participate in a number of tournaments after the start of 2024.
The multinational pair, Hong Kong team's star Ng Wing Lam and Chinese player Liu Yangzi, certainly have no problem communicating with each other, but they are rarely paired to participate in such top competitions. This is the first Grand Slam tournament for the two pairs, and I didn't expect the two to get along very well. If you want to bring it out alone, whether it is Miwa Zhang or Miyu Hirano, they are much higher than Liu Yangzi and Wu Yonglin in the world ranking and competition experience. But when put together. Obviously, the tacit understanding between Chinese players Liu Yangzi and Wu Yonglin seems to be higher.
It's also good news for the Chinese team's women's doubles, our combination of Chen Meng and Wang Manyu is the No. 1 seed in this competition, and from the perspective of book strength, Miu Hirano and Miwa Zhang should be our biggest opponents to win the championship. The two pairs of players also belong to the upper half and the lower half, and they will normally meet until the final, but they didn't expect such a big upset to break out in the first round, so that the Chinese combination is indeed on the road to winning the championship, with a relatively large opponent.