On the evening of May 11, the women's singles final of the WTT Saudi Arabia Grand Slam ended at King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The women's singles match between Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng, after six rounds of fierce battles, Chen Meng finally defeated teammate Sun Yingsha 4-2 and won the women's singles championship.
The national table tennis women's team optimized the Olympic selection method some time ago, making the competition more intense, especially the competition between Chen Meng and teammate Wang Manyu. The recently held WTT Saudi Arabia Grand Slam has become the last event that can be used as a reference for the national table tennis team to determine the Olympic lineup, and its importance is self-evident for them.
In this "choose one of the two" competition, Wang Manyu originally had a big advantage, and was still more than 1,000 points ahead of Chen Meng before the Saudi Grand Slam. But in the second round of the Saudi Grand Slam women's singles, Wang Manyu lost 1-3 to India's Batra. According to the "Selection Measures for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in Table Tennis (Revised Edition)" issued by the Chinese Table Tennis Association, female players will be deducted 3,000 bonus points for international competitions if they lose foreign battles, and Wang Manyu is already in a disadvantageous position. And Chen Meng became more and more courageous in Saudi Arabia, and the three Japanese generals were defeated, and they advanced to the finals while completing the task of not losing the foreign war.
Previously, Chen Meng partnered with Wang Manyu to win the WTT Saudi Arabia Grand Slam Women's Doubles Championship. In the women's singles semifinals, she defeated Hina Hayada and met her teammate Sun Yingsha in the final. As teammates of the national team for many years, they are very familiar with each other and know their respective technical and tactical routines well, so the two sides did not have any temptation after the start, and directly opened the frame to grab the rhythm in the first three boards. The two sides fought fiercely for six rounds, and finally Chen Meng defeated teammate Sun Yingsha 4-2 and successfully won the championship.
Chen Meng admitted frankly after the match that he really didn't expect to achieve a final victory in this Saudi Grand Slam trip. Because I have almost never won against Sasha in the past two years, I will fight her today and learn from the younger Sasha mentality in the arena. She said, "It's very exciting right now, Saudi Arabia has really given me an unforgettable journey, thank you for the Saudi Grand Slam stage, and thank you to everyone today for cheering us on both of us." ”
When talking about the topic that fans said was rubbing the edges, Chen Meng said that he was indeed very lucky today. I haven't won a singles championship for the first time in two years, and I'm really looking forward to it and eager to do it. In the competition between teammates on the field, only one person may win in the end, and I hope the fans will put it in perspective, because it is very normal for competitive sports to win or lose. "In fact, the fans at the game site today are really very fierce to cheer for us, especially when I hear the cheers for me, whether it is the fans from China or the local people, thank you very much, today's game is very rewarding, I will summarize it well when I go back, and we will see you in the next game." Chen Meng said.
Text/Beiqing Sports Zhou Xueshuai