After 7 days of fierce duels, on the evening of March 5, 2022, Beijing time, the first battle of the National Table Tennis Tiger Year - Table Tennis WTT Oman Challenge finally ended all the battles, because the participants of the foreign associations are relatively not very strong, so the champions of the 5 major events are not surprisingly all won by the Chinese team, including:
- Men's Singles: Champion Liang Jingkun, Runner-up Lin Gaoyuan;
- Women's Singles: Champion Kuo Mann, Runner-up Fan Siqi;
- Mixed Doubles: Champion Wang Chuqin/Chen Xingtong, Runner-up Manaf/Achana (India);
- Men's Doubles: Champion Xiang Peng / Lin Shidong, Runner-up Zhuang Zhiyuan / Peng Wangwei (Chinese Taipei);
- Women's Doubles: Champion Kuman/Zhang Rui, Runner-up Tilta/Ashika (India).
Looking at the results, the last to laugh are all national table tennis players, but if we look deeply into the individual, we will find that there are many things to sum up in this competition, especially the 5 main players Liang Jingkun, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin, Zhou Qihao, Chen Xingtong all lost, many of which were unpopular and fiasco, which greatly surprised the fans.
Let's discuss them one by one!
1. Wang Chuqin and Chen Xingtong
Although Wang Chuqin and Chen Xingtong won a championship in the mixed doubles competition, as many fans criticized: this Oman match has more lessons than joy for the two.
First of all, the strength of the doubles combination of Oman's foreign association is indeed very general, but all the masters who can rank up in the table tennis world have not come, and the result is that the Chinese team is undefeated in the foreign war; secondly, Wang Chuqin and Chen Xingtong are the only mixed doubles paired composed of two world champions, and the original strength is much higher than others, if this can not win the championship, it can only be said to be upset.
Therefore, it is very normal for Wang Chuqin and Chen Xingtong to win the championship in mixed doubles, but looking at their performance in other projects, it is indeed a lot of problems.
In the men's doubles and women's doubles matches, Wang Chuqin and Chen Xingtong both folded and sank into the sand, the former partner Liang Jingkun and also two world champions, and lost to Xiang Peng, who was only 18 years old, and Lin Shidong, 16 years old; the latter cooperated with Qian Tianyi, a world table tennis doubles player who was in the top position in the team, and lost to the same 18-year-old young player Ku Man and the sparring player Zhang Rui, who imitated Ito Mimachi.
In the singles match, Wang Chuqin still lost 1-3 to Xiang Peng, and Chen Xingtong also lost 1-3 to Ku Man, such a result is obviously difficult to satisfy.
You know, Wang Chuqin, Chen Xingtong is not Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu, they originally did not completely catch up with the veteran in the competition within the national table tennis team, the position in the main players is not very front, now the front foot has not yet stood, the back foot has been squeezed by younger players, this situation is not good!
Second, Lin Gaoyuan
Lin Gaoyuan's problem has always existed, that is, the state has risen and fallen too badly, and once it collapses, it is simply a mountain of defeat, such as a foreign war, and the same is true for a civil war.
In this Oman men's singles competition, Lin Gaoyuan's performance in the first two rounds of the final was like divine help, facing the new star Lin Shidong, who had defeated himself, he easily swept the other party 3-0; facing the men's singles runner-up Liu Dingshuo of the National Games, he was also 3-1 easy to win, and the game could not be described as fascinating.
In the final battle, the first situation was the lead over Liang Jingkun, and Lin Gaoyuan was even more "ashes and smoke between talking and laughing", and the cloud lightly reversed the opponent, like a posture of a world-class master. But who could have imagined that in the second set, Lin Gaoyuan not only lost, but also lost miserably, directly bombarded by Liang Jingkun with a 0-11 score!
After that, Lin Gaoyuan lost 6 points 5-11 in the third set, lost 9 points in the fourth set 2-11, and finally came back to his senses in the fifth set, but everything was irreparable, and as a result, he lost 9-11 and never had a chance to turn the tables.
Looking back, Lin Gaoyuan has collapsed many times when he held the match point in his hand, and he has also been defeated under heavy pressure many times, and these old problems have always accompanied him for several years, which is indeed a pity! A good athlete should not only practice his skills hard, but also temper his psychology - for Lin Gaoyuan, who is about to turn 27, there are not many opportunities.
3. Liang Jingkun
Liang Jingkun finally withstood the pressure and became the first men's singles king in the Year of the National Table Tennis Tiger, which is worthy of our affirmation. But it is clear that the athlete, who was once on par with Fan Zhendong, still has two very big problems restricting his development:
First, Liang Jingkun's singles performance is frightening, with the world's top batting quality, but always have to play back and forth with the opponent, many key games often have a narrow win situation, last year's World Table Tennis Championships against Hugo, Picheford is so, this Oman match and Xiang Peng is the same.
Some people may say that 4-3 is a win, 4-0 is also a win, essentially the same! That's not wrong, but imagine if you're a coach, would you prefer a narrow-win athlete or a quick-win player when an important race opportunity comes?
Second, Liang Jingkun's doubles ability has not been improved for a long time, which has caused great trouble to the competition within his team. At this moment, this incident can be specifically described as: Liang Jingkun was left behind in the competition with Wang Chuqin.
A very strange phenomenon is that Liang Jingkun's current singles competition results are second only to Ma Long, Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin in the team, but people always feel that he lags behind Wang Chuqin in the competition. The age gap is certainly one reason, but not all, and the difference in doubles strength is also a very important aspect.
Wang Chuqin is the mixed doubles champion of the World Table Tennis Championships, the winner of the men's doubles, and is also a left-handed athlete, while Liang Jingkun has participated in many domestic and foreign competitions without achieving particularly brilliant results - we all know that the Olympic Games have a mixed doubles gold medal, there is a very important team doubles competition, who has a high level of doubles, who can naturally occupy a better position in the hearts of the coaching staff.
So Liang Jingkun now either trains his singles level to the top level and wins a world table tennis championship, or doubles must improve, otherwise he wants to overpower Wang Chuqin with two men's singles bronze medals in the World Table Tennis Championships? Not very realistic - in the Chinese table tennis team, singles gold medal and silver medal players still have a big hand, let alone bronze medals?
Fourth, Ku Man to Penglin Shidong
Compared with the above main players, the performance of the three major players in this Oman race is undoubtedly more worthy of recognition and praise: two 18-year-olds and a 16-year-old athlete can break through the world championship defense line continuously, and finally win two championships, which is indeed not simple! But apparently, the three are also different.
For Ku man, who has won two championships and has already defeated Chen Meng last year, there are more opportunities and challenges in the future:
There are many opportunities because her performance is more eye-catching now, and it is already very similar to Sun Yingsha four years ago, and it may be possible to copy the path of the sister; the challenge is more, because the replacement of the new and old women's team has actually been completed, and it may not be easy for Ku Man to cross the two mountains of Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu in the short term.
For Xiang Peng and Lin Shidong, although their performance is not as good as Ku Man for the time being, considering that the men's team is still in the shock of the replacement of the old and the new, they still have a good chance to impact the predecessors. Moreover, the probability of upsetting in the male table tennis field is often greater, and it is not easy to form a "class solidification", and the situation creates heroes.
Of course, the outcome of a competition is unlikely to give athletes a final conclusion on their future careers, the matter is artificial, the future is still in everyone's own hands: on March 7, the WTT Grand Slam is about to officially kick off, and the above 7 players will fight again, so let's sit together and wait for their latest war report to come back:
Come on, guys!