The 2021 Houston World Table Tennis Championships is about to start in November, and the national table tennis rival, Japan's YoungSter Zhang Benzhihe, has received good news, that is, he is currently ranked second in the men's singles event, and if he can continue to maintain it, he will successfully avoid Fan Zhendong (currently ranked first in the world) before the final.
The reason for this situation is that Ma Long, who are ranked second and third in the world, and Xu Xin voluntarily withdrew from the competition and gave up participating in this year's World Table Tennis Championships. However, Zhang Benzhihe is not at ease, because the next national table tennis player Lin Gaoyuan will play two consecutive WTT matches, if he can win two consecutive championships, the ranking can surpass Zhang Benzhihe.
So can Lin Gaoyuan do it? The suspense is still there!
The registration for this year's World Table Tennis Championships did not occur to most fans, and veterans Ma Long, Xu Xin, Liu Shiwen and Ochalov all gave up participating for their own reasons, which gave other young players more opportunities to perform. And because there are more masters who withdraw from the men's single side, it also makes the signing position of the seeded players have been greatly affected.
If you take the latest issue of the world rankings, the advantages of national table tennis in the field of women's singles are obvious, one, two and four of the top four seeded players belong to Chen Meng, Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, and only the second is Ito Mimako; but the situation in the men's singles is not good, the first is Fan Zhendong, the second is Zhang Benzhihe, the third is Hugo, the fourth is Lin Yunru, three of whom are foreign association players!
According to the arrangement of this year's World Table Tennis Championships, the ranking of seeded players is based on the world ranking announced on November 16, which reads "The ranking list which will be used for seeding and for the draws shall be the ITTF Table Tennis World Ranking to be published on 16 November 2021".
Before November 16, everyone only had two international competitions to brush points, that is, WTT Slovenia Tournament (November 1 to 14), and the championship points of each station were 400 points - the top four in women's table tennis did not participate, so it had no impact on them; but there were variables on the men's table tennis side, the most critical figure of which was Lin Gaoyuan.
At present, Lin Gaoyuan is 8034 points, Zhang Benzhihe is 8709 points, if Lin Gaoyuan can win two men's singles championships in Slovenia in a row, he is expected to surpass Zhang Benzhihe and rise to the second seed of the men's singles of the World Table Tennis Championships, but this difficulty is obviously very large.
Although the WTT Slovenia tournament does not have a particularly large number of masters to participate, but the national table tennis side also sent Lin Gaoyuan, Liang Jingkun, Wang Chuqin, Zhou Qihao, Liu Dingshuo in the men's singles event, and whoever loses and wins between these five people is possible, not to mention that there are fark, Simon, Dako and other foreign association rivals to join, Lin Gaoyuan wants to win two championships in a row is indeed very difficult.
In the 2019 Budapest World Table Tennis Championships, 4 of the five men's singles players in the national table tennis were all divided into one and a half districts, while Xu Xin in the other half was eliminated early, which made the final inevitably become a contest between the Chinese team and the foreign association.
And this year's situation is even worse, because Fan Zhendong is currently ranked first, Lin Gaoyuan is fifth, Liang Jingkun is ninth, Wang Chuqin is thirteenth, and Zhou Qihao is around 100, so theoretically there is a possibility that all five people will be divided into a half-zone, which is obviously not a good thing for the Chinese team!
Therefore, in the next WTT Slovenia tournament, Lin Gaoyuan and other national table tennis players must strive to go upstream, take more points to improve their ranking, in order to get a good signing position in the World Table Tennis Championships.
However, the current situation is "more monks and less meat" - Lin Gaoyuan can only enter the top four with all his strength, Liang Jingkun and Wang Chuqin can enter the top eight at most, Zhou Qihao does not have much hope, and everyone is doomed to win two championships, so the national table tennis can only be prepared for the worst group results.
But again, if you want to win the championship, you have to beat all opponents, whether you meet teammates or athletes from outside the association. Finally, I wish the Chinese team good results this year and strive to win the championship again: Come on, everyone!