The ITTF Pro Tour is a large-scale international single sport event launched by the ITTF in 1996, second only to the Olympic Games, the World Championships and the World Table Tennis Championships in terms of competition influence. However, winning the finals is more difficult than the three grand slams. Why? Let's make a specific analysis from the following aspects.
1. Number of participants. The Olympic Games are limited to two men's and women's singles, and the Tokyo Olympics men's and women's singles players are 48. The World Championships are limited to five participants per team, with a total of more than 80 people, the Number of World Cup matches is 20 singles men and 20 women, and there are 20 teams in the team competition. The men's and women's teams in the Tour Finals are 16 players each, which is the top 16 players in the total points of the Tour.
2. Requirements for participants.
In the Olympic Games, each country is selected according to its own actual situation, and the number of singles men and women is limited to two. In this case, the women's singles are basically carried out among the four players in China and Japan, and the steps to win the championship are much reduced, and the men's singles is a different matter.
World Table Tennis Championships. Each association has a quota of three men and three men for each person to participate in the World Table Tennis Championships singles competition, and if one player of the association enters the top 100 in the world ranking, the association receives an additional place, and if one player ranks in the top 20 in the world, the association receives another place, but no more than five players of men and women can participate in singles competitions. Six players from each of the associations of the host countries can participate.
The World Cup event is an invitation system, the World Championships singles champion and the intercontinental Cup champions automatically participate, Liu Shiwen and Zhu Yuling are based on this condition to participate. Other players, who are required to participate in the Intercontinental Cup, are in the top of the competition, and players are required to participate on all continents, so some are similar to welfare events.
Tour Open Finals. IttfF Tour Finals is a year-end event held annually for athletes with the highest points rankings of each station of the Tour, held once a year, the Tour adopts a points system, and the top sixteen points of the Tour are eligible for the year-end finals, the premise of this condition is that no matter whether you are an Olympic champion or a champion, if you do not participate in the events of each division, the points do not meet the requirements and there is no chance to participate in the finals, and the necessary condition is that you must participate in more than five events.
The highest difficulty of the Tour Finals, there are about 10 to 15 stops per year, distributed on different continents, the main tournament has 64 players in the men's and women's singles, and 16 pairs of men's and women's doubles, and adopts a single-elimination system until the final champion is decided. If there are a large number of applicants, there will also be a qualifying tournament. Being able to reach the final finals requires the highest competitive status in the competition throughout the year.
Third, the list of participants in the Tour Finals.
2017 Women's Singles Roster: Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Ishikawa Yoshinori, Ito Mimachi, Gu Yuting, Zhu Yuling, Feng Tianwei, Chen Xingtong, Mori Sakura, Shan Xiaona, Hayata Hina, Hirano Miyu, Han Ying, Du Kaixuan, Hitomi Sato, Zheng Yijing.
2018 Women's Singles Entry List: Wang Manyu, Ishikawa Yoshizumi, Liu Shiwen, Ito Mimachi, Ding Ning, Chen Meng, Zhu Yuling, Xu Xiaoyuan, Zheng Yijing, Chen Xingtong, Hitomi Sato, He Zhuojia, Hirano Miyu, Sun Yingsha, Feng Tianwei, Shibata Shaji.
2019 Women's Singles Entry List: Ding Ning, Liu Shiwen, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Sun Yingsha, Zhu Yuling, Chen Xingtong, Wang Yidi, He Zhuojia, Qian Tianyi, Ito Mimako, Hirano Miyu, Ishikawa Yoshinori, Hitomi Sato, Feng Tianwei, Zheng Yijing.
2020 Women's Singles Entry List:
From the above list, it can be seen that the female table tennis players who participate in each tour championship are the masters of various associations, and they need to experience hundreds of battles if they want to win the championship, and if they want to win the championship for four consecutive times, they are basically geniuses among geniuses!
Here to emphasize, the tour adopts a knockout system, if you encounter an unsuitable master in the competition, you can be eliminated at any time, the risk of being eliminated is very large.
To sum up, while olympic champions represent national honors and rank first in a political sense, they are not the most difficult. The Table Tennis World Championships are mainly based on rankings, but the premise is that each association sends three people, and in comparison, the level is still uneven. The Table Tennis World Cup is basically a chance for the top ranking athletes from all continents, and there is no competition with China's national table tennis. Only the tour finals are the most demanding, participate in five tournaments, rank in the top 16, this is the real performance of strength.
The above narrative, if you do not recognize, let's use the facts to speak, as of now, the table tennis Grand Slam has been won by ten people around the world, but the ITTF Tour Finals has won four consecutive championships, only one person has won, this record in the future for a long time, no one can break through!
Now everyone is talking about who can win the Houston World Championship, and there is a lot of criticism of Chen Meng, even if Chen Meng can't win the World Championship, what can he do? Even if Wang Manyu Sun Yingsha won the World Table Tennis Championship, her comparison with Chen Meng's four Table Tennis Super League Finals World Championships is also a difference of 18,000 miles, not to mention that Chen Meng is still an Olympic champion?
Bow fights as a boy, once in a dream with thrush. Several times Si returned the wine, and the clouds piled on the concubine.