At three o'clock in the morning on August 1, Beijing time, Sun Yingsha ushered in the third round of her women's singles, that is, the round of 16, against the ace player Akula from India. This is Sun Yingsha's third big battle in 36 hours, she had previously partnered with Wang Chuqin in Paris time yesterday afternoon, won the first mixed doubles gold medal in the history of the Chinese table tennis team, entered the morning of July 31, Paris time, she and Ni Xialian had the second round of women's singles, this game was relatively easy, except for the third game of the two sides played a more anxious score of 13:11, the remaining games Sun Yingsha won relatively easily, So the game took a total of 33 minutes. She also has enough stamina for her matchup with Akula tonight.
If you have to experience three big battles in 36 hours, Sun Yingsha must have a certain physical impact on her, but how to deal with multiple matches a day, Sun Yingsha is very experienced, in this Olympic cycle, Sun Yingsha is responsible for three matches a day, or even four matches a day, she often goes to participate in women's doubles, mixed doubles and singles three competitions, three or four games a day is not too big a problem for her.
The Akula she faced this early morning is also an opponent that Chinese fans are more familiar with this year. In the first round of the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan, the India team performed very well, and it was Akula and Mujik who won at that time, Mujik defeated Sun Yingsha at that time, and Akula defeated Wang Yidi at that time. It is worth mentioning that Sun Yingsha's opponents in these two rounds, Ni Xialian and Akula, have defeated Wang Yidi in this Olympic cycle, which shows that for this kind of strange player with long rubber granular play, the Chinese table tennis women's team does need to do more research, and our main force still suffers a lot in this regard.
Akula and Sun Yingsha have no head-to-head record in history, Sun Yingsha is currently ranked No. 1 in the world, and Akula is ranked No. 25 and is the No. 16 seed in this tournament. Akula easily defeated Sweden's Carlberg 4-0 in the first round, and also won 4-2 against Zeng Jian in the last game, showing good competitive form.
Akula is a player with excellent offensive skills and small ball skills, but lack of explosiveness, lack of active offensive ability, on the whole, her defense is stronger than offense, but compared with Sun Yingsha, a player with comprehensive and solid basic skills, she will be suppressed by Sun Yingsha at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, the only problem is that in the face of her relatively weird style of play, the landing point of the ball still has to be calculated.
However, in 2024, after the thrilling victory in the first game of the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan, the Chinese women's team has already had a certain amount of research on this granular style of play, especially now during the Olympic Games, Ni Xialian, who has just been defeated by the Chinese team, has also taught Sun Yingsha the experience of playing this granular style of play many times, because she is also the founder of this style of play. Therefore, I believe that this match with Akula should not be a big problem for Sun Yingsha, and the score is expected to be between 4:0 and 4:1.