On May 11, the WTF Saudi Arabia Grand Slam Tournament ended successfully, and in the past seven match days, the national table tennis has lived up to expectations and successfully won five championships, including mixed doubles, women's doubles, men's doubles, women's singles, and men's singles.
The most eye-catching young post-00 player Wang Chuqin's performance, he achieved three consecutive Saudi Grand Slam championships, won all three competitions he participated in, and was also the biggest model worker in this event. Women's veteran Chen Meng also performed brightly, partnering Wang Manyu to win the Women's Doubles title on Day 6 with Wang Manyu, beating world No. 1 South Koreans Tian Zhixi and Shin Yubin.
Later, in the women's singles final on the 11th, she defeated her world-ranked teammate Sun Yingsha and won the women's singles championship, showing the style of an Olympic champion.
It is reported that the Saudi Grand Slam is one of the highest-level events in the WT Grand Slam, and the champion will receive 2,000 points, which is even higher than the Singapore Grand Slam that has just ended. The international table tennis associations have sent their main players to participate in the competition, and they are all candidates for the Olympics.
Before the game, Japan, Germany and other table tennis associations have announced the Olympic list, but the list of national table tennis has not been released for a long time, which can't help but make fans speculate who will play in the Paris Olympics. Subsequently, the national table tennis coaching staff also revealed the news that the candidates for the Olympics will be announced after the Saudi Grand Slam.
In this Saudi Arabia Grand Slam, the national table tennis sent 12 main players, and they are all excellent players ranked high in the world, because it is the last stop in the national table tennis Olympic points cycle. So the players went all out to participate, but the next game was not very ideal, and even made the coaching staff and fans have a heart attack, what happened?
The first is the successive elimination of the three main players of the men's team. Grand Slam tournaments are divided into qualifiers and main draws, with lower-ranked players playing the qualifiers before they have a chance to enter the main draw. Due to the high ranking of the main force of national table tennis, there is no need to participate in the qualifying tournament, and the preparation starts directly from the main competition.
Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha attended the draw ceremony as the men's and women's world No. 1 rankings, and Asal and Takahashi of the Foreign Association also participated. Judging from the complete draw, the bottom half of the men's team and the bottom half of the women's team are very crowded. Almost all the main forces of the foreign association are distributed in these two halves, and the main Olympic forces of the Japanese women's team are all in the half of Wang Manyu and Chen Meng. The men's team's Zhang Ben, Hugo, Lebrun and Zhang Yuzhen, as the top seeds in each association, are all distributed in the lower half of the region, which is destined to be a tough battle.
In the first round of the competition, the national table tennis did not encounter major challenges, and all of them successfully advanced. However, on the second match day, Ma Long, Liang Jingkun, and Lin Gaoyuan of the men's team were eliminated one after another, and all of them lost to players from other associations. What's even more shocking is that in the one-eighth game, Olympic champion Fan Zhendong actually lost to Francesca and was out of the game.
The coaching staff of the men's team suddenly panicked, it was only the quarterfinals, and only Wang Chuqin and Lin Shidong were left in the main Chinese team, and these two were still in the same half of the district. This means that there must be a player from a foreign association in the championship and runner-up, which feels a huge threat and sense of crisis for the Chinese team, which has always won the championship and runner-up.
Netizens even posted a post lamenting that the pressure on national table tennis is really great, and the impact of foreign associations on us should not be underestimated. Fans silently prayed that Wang Chuqin and Lin Shidong could hold on and advance to the semifinals. Compared to the heavy blow on the men's side, the women's team is in a better situation.
But there was also an upset, Wang Manyu, known as the king of foreign wars, lost to India's special rubber style of play Batra, which also caused her to lose the women's singles qualification for the Paris Olympics. According to the previous selection system, 3,000 points will be deducted if she loses to the foreign association, then her score will be lower than Chen Meng.
As long as Chen Meng does not lose the foreign war, then the quota for the Olympic women's singles will inevitably be Chen Meng's. In the evening game, Chen Xingtong lost to teammate Qian Tianyi. After Qian Tianyi entered the quarterfinals, he met another teammate, Sun Yingsha, who was ranked No. 1 in the world, Sun Yingsha felt explosive, and played an explosive score of 11-0 in the first game, and opened 8-2 in the second game.
Qian Tianyi recovered a few goals, but the huge score difference was destined to be unable to be recovered, Sun Yingsha won another game 11-6, in the third game Sun Yingsha took a big lead again, and played a 7-0 when she came up, and then won the third game at the speed of light 11-3, losing three games in a row made Qian Tianyi's state decline, and Sun Yingsha won the fourth game 11-6 with a super touch, and finally won the game with a big score of 4-0 to advance to the semifinals.
Before the semi-finals, Sun Yingsha partnered Wang Chuqin in the mixed doubles final, and the opponents were Wong Chun-ting and Du Kaiqin from Hong Kong, China, these two are also old rivals of national table tennis, and they have played against each other many times before. They defeated France's mixed doubles pair in the semi-finals and successfully met the national table tennis pair.
The Shatou combination defeated the Japanese mixed doubles pair 3-0 in the semifinals, and is also the biggest opponent of national table tennis - Hina Hayada and Tomokazu Zhangmoto, and successfully entered the final. In the end, the Shatou pair won the mixed doubles championship with three 11-6 wins, and then Sun Yingsha defeated teammate Wang Yidi in the women's singles semi-finals to advance to the final, and then lost to the veteran Chen Meng.
After teammate Wang Manyu was eliminated, Chen Meng needed to defend the half zone alone and face three Japanese players in succession. And these three are all seeded players who will compete in the Paris Olympics, so you can imagine what a huge challenge this is for Chen Meng. One person singled out the entire Japanese girl group.
Fortunately, Chen Meng finally defeated Miyu Hirano, Miwa Zhangmoto, and Hina Hayada successively with his sufficient experience and strong skills and tactics, and successfully advanced to the finals, and then defeated teammate Sun Yingsha and successfully won the women's singles championship of the Grand Slam. In the post-match interview, Chen Meng also said that this is the first time she has won the championship in the past two years, and she is also very excited at this moment.
The same is true for the men's team, Wang Chuqin stubbornly stuck to his half of the area when his teammates were eliminated one after another. He first eliminated Denmark's Grote, and then partnered Ma Long to win the men's doubles title, and he and Lin Shidong competed fiercely in the semi-finals to finally win the match. Among the many masters in the second half of the field, Francesca stood out and performed very well in this tournament, defeating a single player from Germany and South Korea to successfully advance to the final and win the runner-up.
After the Saudi Grand Slam, the Chinese Table Tennis Association also announced the complete list of Olympic participants. The men's team Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin qualified for the singles, Ma Long participated in the team competition, the women's team Sun Yingsha and Chen Meng qualified for the singles, Wang Manyu participated in the team competition, and the P card was Liang Jingkun and Wang Yidi. Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha are both three-sport, and it is worth looking forward to Sun Yingsha and Fan Zhendong expected to achieve career Grand Slams in Paris.
If you have anything to say about this, please leave a message in the comment area.