With a sweet smile, exquisite facial features, and a ponytail that is not long or short, Wang Shixian may be one of the most beautiful female athletes in the Chinese badminton industry and even in the Chinese sports industry in recent years. She is also known as the "Yutan Wang Zuxian", and with a height of 1.68 meters, she looks very light.
On the field, she stepped on the dance steps of the elves, flashing and moving, and the playing style of the hanging assault was full of spirituality. Confident, agile, and open-minded, she is a different existence in Chinese female feathers, which makes people see different possibilities. Wang Shixian is Wang Shixian, she is not Zhang Ning, not Xie Xingfang, Wang Shixian is different from them!
Born in 1990 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, she won the Asian Games badminton women's singles championship at the age of 20. People have a lot of expectations for this young and beautiful girl. From smooth sailing to conflict and struggle, Wang Shixian found a balance between the coach's opinion and her own ideas, but Zhang Ning's simple and rough, manly style of play still made her lose herself.
Later, Li Yongbo told Wang Shixian that he could no longer see the self-confidence and ethereal agility she had in the past on the field. The argument between Wang Shixian and coach Zhang Ning may now have an answer. Wang Shixian became a short version of Zhang Ning, without the original sharpness and spirituality. Now seeing the same type of Japanese player Okuhara hoping to compete in the field, she can't help but feel a little sentimental. Wang Shixian would have been better, badminton is not only one way to play, she should have been able to stand in a higher position.
Looking at such a petite Wang Shixian on the field, it may be difficult for the audience to imagine that she was a little fat girl when she was a child, and losing weight became the starting point of her badminton career. Wang Shixian entered the Suzhou Amateur Sports School at the age of 8, practiced badminton, and two years later went to the Jiangsu Junior Sports School for trial training, when her ability in all aspects was not very outstanding, especially her physical fitness, and she was turned away after the trial.
After that, Wang Shixian went to the Shanghai Sports Academy Affiliated Athletic School to practice, where she grew rapidly, and the Jiangsu Provincial Games was a turning point in her badminton career. In the badminton competition of the Jiangsu Provincial Games, Wang Shixian won the Women's Singles Championship of The Second Division, and her strength was tested by the results, so she got the opportunity to enter the Jiangsu Provincial Team. Wang Shixian hesitated, but in the end she decided to continue the badminton path.
In 2005, he entered the national youth team, in 2006 he was promoted to the national second team, and in 2007, he made his international debut at the Asian Youth Championship. However, due to the lack of good enough results, she could only work hard in the second team for the next two years. After two years of experience, Wang Shixian's playing style has gradually taken shape.
In 2009, she began to really emerge, winning the women's singles title at the Malaysian Open and the China Open, and then winning the women's team championship at the National Games, and the women's singles competition also reached the final. In 2010, Wang Shixian reached the final four of the World Championships, and what made her really "overnight famous" was the Asian Games, after which she had a new label - the youngest badminton women's singles champion in history! He was only 20 years old.
During this time, Wang Shixian advanced to the women's singles finals for seven consecutive times and won four of them, including the Asian Games and the National Open, two heavy gold medals. Wang Shixian participated in the Sudirman Cup competition in 2011, defeating Pei Yanshu in the semi-finals, helping China to win the South Korean team 3-1 to reach the final and successfully win the championship.
Wang Shixian, who soared to the first place in the world ranking, launched a powerful impact on the status of the single sister of the national feather. Problems are also gradually brewing in the smooth, Wang Shixian and coach Zhang Ning's differences are getting bigger and bigger, and it is difficult to balance the views of the two sides. Wang Shixian entered a period of struggle, and she did not completely break free in the end...
Zhang Ning is a legendary figure in the Chinese badminton world, a late bloomer, winning two consecutive Olympic women's singles championships, and no one can stand out. After retiring, she entered the national team as a coach and wanted to create more "Zhang Ning", but the fact is that there can only be one Zhang Ning in the world, but badminton is not only a way to play.
Zhang Ning's playing style is biased towards masculinity, emphasizing strength, physical fitness, and fighting consumption, which is compatible with the fact that most of the national team selected seedlings at that time was biased towards tall, strength-type players. Wang Shixian and Zhang Ning are completely two ways of playing, Wang Shixian is more flexible, the combination of movement and hanging in the midfield, winning with footsteps and technology, is more like today's Okuhara hope, but Wang Shixian hopes to have better conditions than Ohara.
Wang Shixian was very incomprehensible to Zhang Ning's requirements, and after losing the 2011 Asian Championship, Wang Shixian did not reach the final for the first time after the Asian Games. Winning or losing is a common affair, and this is only a relatively chicken game, but Wang Shixian cried very sadly. In the CCTV footage, we found her sad answer - Wang Shixian said that she did not think the same as the coach, she could not understand the coach, and the coach could not understand herself.
Wang Shixian has a confident personality, and when she feels that the request is unreasonable, she will clearly say "no". She has twice refused the request of her national team teammates to change the ball in the game, and this time the contradiction with the coach is the same, and even entered the scope of public discussion, which is rare in the national team. Collective life sometimes wears away some of people's sharpness, Wang Shixian began to accept Zhang Ning's opinion more, she began to lose part of herself, she was no longer complete, and became a "short version of Zhang Ning".
Since the second half of 2011, Wang Shixian has lost eight consecutive foreign wars and missed the London Olympic Games, thus entering a long period of adjustment. It wasn't until October 2013 that she won the Super Women's Singles title again, 21 months after her last victory. These 21 months were too long, basically obliterating the possibility of Wang Shixian going to a higher place.
In 2014, Wang Shixian won the All England Open women's singles title again, and no one thought that this would be her last major honor. After the Rio Olympics, the 26-year-old Wang Shixian quit the national team and completely ended her career as an athlete after the 2017 National Games. Who would have thought that her heaviest singles champion would be a 20-year-old Asian Games champion? Fate is too manipulative, or perhaps, it is a doomed tragedy.
Wang Shixian and Chen Long are known as the heroes of the feather altar, and at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, Wang Shixian in the audience and even Chen Long on the competition field were even more nervous. After Chen Long won the championship, Wang Shixian cried like a child, which is probably the most beautiful look of love! After Wang Shixian retired in 2017, Chen Long successfully proposed to her, and the two who had been in love for 9 years finally entered the marriage hall. In 2019, Wang Shixian gave birth to "small coffee" and formed a happy family of three, and she also revealed that she had gained more than 30 pounds during pregnancy.
After retiring from the army, Wang Shixian was not idle, and she studied for graduate school at Beijing Sport University. Wang Shixian's success has never been a victory in physical fitness, strength and high-intensity confrontation, but it is her flexible playing style that has created her. Now Okuhara hopes to use this flexible style of play to pose a huge threat to the Chinese women's badminton, and Okuhara hopes to win the bronze medal in the first Olympic Games and the world championship in 2017. In China, Okuhara hopes that a height of 1 meter 55 may not be able to enter the national team at all...
Okuhara hopes that the success of the present and the success of Wang Shixian represent that the masculine style of play is not the only direction of the women's badminton play. World champions such as Zhang Ning and Chen Jin are undoubtedly representatives of successful athletes in the history of badminton, but it does not mean that their experience can be perfectly matched to the needs of young players. Teaching according to the talent is the right direction, and there is no only correct way to play in the world.
Increasing the amount of training to the extent that athletes cannot afford it, adhering to the rigid masculine style of play, the Chinese badminton team has gradually lagged behind the world trend, and many excellent badminton players have also increased many injuries, and even affected their career development. In fact, it is not that they are not good enough, but the method is not right. Wang Shixian is a talented badminton player, but not Zhang Ning's talent...