At the 2024 WTT Table Tennis Grand Slam in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, most of the singles players of the Japanese women's team were eliminated before the semi-finals, and only world No. 5 Hina Hayada made it to the semifinals. In a women's singles semifinal held on May 10, Hina Hayada lost directly to the world's No. 4 national table tennis player Chen Meng and failed to enter the final. In addition, the women's singles final on the second day was between Chen Meng and the world's first sister Sun Yingsha, and in the end, Chen Meng won 4-2 and won the championship.
Hina Hayada was swept by Chen Meng and missed the women's singles final
Among the six Japanese women's singles players who competed in this tournament, Miu Hirano (ranked 13th in the world), Miwa Haramoto (8th) and Hina Hayada lost to Chen Meng in the round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals respectively. Chen Meng, who beautifully defeated the three representatives of the Japanese table tennis women's team at the Paris Olympics, took advantage of the victory and chased after it and reached the top of this event.
Chen Meng's station staged a "string of three" against Japan, and only lost one game against Zhang Benmei and the three games.
Moreover, the domestic media are also full of praise for Chen Meng's three consecutive victories against Japan's top Japanese players who have been improving their strength as a competitor in the Chinese table tennis world. On May 12, the day after the tournament ended, a media outlet titled "One Man Defeats 3 Major Japanese Players!" Chen Meng defeated the Japanese representative of the Olympic Games". According to the article, the three Japanese players, Miu Hirano, Miwa Zhangmoto, and Hina Hayata, are all athletes participating in the Paris Olympics, and they can also be said to be the main players of Japan in the Olympic Games. Chen Meng defeated the three main players of the Japanese team alone, which also means that she defeated the entire Japanese Olympic team.
Chen Meng defeated the entire Japanese Olympic team
Chen Meng is a two-time gold medalist in the women's team and women's singles at the Tokyo Olympics, but her results on the international stage have been poor since then. In order to make a comeback, Chen Meng positioned the 2024 WTT Table Tennis Grand Slam Saudi Arabia, which gathered strong players, as "a conference suitable for proving his strength", and the result did not disappoint his fans. Many netizens called Chen Meng an "anti-Japanese hero", and some media praised "Chen Meng really has unique skills against the Japanese team".
Japanese media said that in this competition, Chen Meng's record with Japan's three top players is that they only lost to Zhang Benmei and won one game. Although the Japanese team had a fierce competition with the Chinese team in the women's team final of the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan in February this year, they were pushed back by the "Chinese high wall" in this singles competition.