Early the next morning, a group of more than ten people took a plane to Sakura Country to participate in T2 Diamond Match. Among them were three male team members, three female team members, and several staff responsible for various affairs.
The team was led by a female coach named Ge Miao from the Chinese Table Tennis Women's Team. She was in her forties and slightly fat. Wang Chao didn't know her or heard of her. From simple contact, she felt that Coach Ge was an extremely strong and resolute person.
This candidate to lead the team actually represents a certain attitude that Huaping conveys to the outside world.
"This competition you are organizing is too big. We Chinese Table Tennis Team's main team will definitely not come. In this case, the heavyweight coach of the men's team will naturally not come. Even the women's team cannot have a head coach. At most, there will be a head coach."
Well, that's probably what it means.
What surprised Wang Chao was that Zhu Ding was among the three members of the men's team.
He remembered that Qin Huachang clearly told him that he did not know the other two candidates.
In other words, Zhu Ding actually replaced someone from the national team who was originally going to Sakura Country, jumped in midway, and got this spot.
As for the other team member, he is from National Second Team. He is only 15 years old, and his name is Lu Feiyang. He has a big head and a strong head, and is full of energy. He kept talking about wanting to compete with Wang Chao all the way, which made Wang Chao quite confused. He didn't know how he aroused the opponent's desire to fight.
Although he defeated Bai Feng yesterday, which was an extremely amazing battle, he remembered clearly that Cai Guodong specifically issued a gag order afterwards. This game was only allowed to be discussed internally among the First Team players and coaches at the scene, and was not allowed to be leaked. Otherwise, the leaker would be strictly held accountable.
This is the good intention of Cai Guodong to prevent the outside world from being too optimistic about Wang Chao and causing unnecessary pressure on newcomers.
Just like Luo Jiu's change of rubber, strictly speaking, it was also planned by Wang Chao, but all the coaches are stuffy in their stomachs and dare not say anything about this matter. Unless Wang Chao really stands on the top of the table tennis world in the future, otherwise speaking out about this matter will be a complete flattery, which is harmful rather than helpful.
So Wang Chao is very confused. Lu Feiyang, who is in the second team, probably doesn't know about yesterday's battle, so why did he challenge me?
Then Zhu Ding answered his question, "That kid is complaining about Liu Shu."
Wang Chao was even more surprised. "Who is Liu Shu? I don't know you."
"You didn't offend him, but he was supposed to be one of the people boarding the plane today, but now he has been replaced."
Zhu Ding was still wearing sunglasses and was reluctant to take them off even on the plane, so Wang Chao couldn't see his expression when he spoke, only the corners of his mouth that were slightly upturned. "Liu Shu is a full-time sparring coach for the national team. He is thirty-one years old and has trained three batches of the main players of the national team. He is always injured and hardworking. He is one of the unsung heroes behind Hua Ping. He is very respected by the team members. Sakura Country, Old Cai originally wanted him to take the opportunity to travel and relax, and earn some US dollars on the way... but now he can't go."
Wang Chao was stunned for a long time and then said, "But you should be the one to replace him, right?"
"Yes, it was me." Zhu Ding said with a hint of schadenfreude in his tone, "But do you think that boy dares to stab me?"
Wang Chao is speechless.
These days, do 15-year-old kids know how to bully the weak and fear the strong?
"Don't think so bad of him." Zhu Ding actually comforted Wang Chao in turn, "He probably thought that I was destroyed by you, so he didn't take me seriously at all... You know, these little brats National Second Team have been treated as geniuses by the people around them since they were young. They all have their eyes above their heads, and even Table Tennis Super League can't look down on them. Those of us who are obsessed with getting Grand Slam, and Table Tennis First Division like us, all look like colored pens to them."
Three and a half hours later, the plane landed at Sakura Country Capital Airport. When they left the airport, the Sakura Country Table Tennis Association had already arranged a special bus to wait outside, and took a group of more than ten people directly to a hotel near the competition venue.
The environment is excellent. There is even a nice hot spring on the ground floor of the hotel where you can soak. It is one of the most enjoyable things for Sakura Country residents in this slightly cold October weather.
At this time, the players from other countries had basically arrived, and Huaping was the last to arrive. This detail also highlights Huaping's special status in the world table tennis world.
Sakura Country always likes to make some mistakes when hosting events in previous years, and has a long history, but this time, it is probably because they really want to run the T-League well. In order to attract top players from all over the world to play, they have done a good job in hospitality and provided each player with a separate training venue to ensure that everyone can have the best competitive condition.
At 5:30 in the afternoon, everyone followed Ge Miao to the cafeteria on the seventeenth floor of the building to have dinner.
Sakura Country The Table Tennis Association has also worked hard on food. The long tables in the restaurant are filled with various delicacies, which look beautiful at first glance. However, Wang Chao is from Jiangcheng and is used to salty and spicy flavors. When eating things like these sashimi rice balls, even though he knew that every bite was valuable, he still felt that it was not enough. After walking around, he finally chose tempura...
Well, actually it's just fried goods.
The fried food is dipped in Sakura Country light soy sauce and a few rice balls, but it can barely be dealt with.
Then someone sat down on the chair opposite him, gave him a friendly smile, and said, "Hi."
Wang Chao subconsciously replied, "Hi."
Then the other party started chattering a lot of words that he didn't understand.
Although Wang Chao's English was not very good, he was sure that what he heard was not English.
Sitting opposite him was a blond guy with blue eyes. He was handsome and looked like a movie star, but he had a racket in his bag, indicating that he should be a contestant.
However, I don't understand...
The little brother probably also knew that there was a problem with communication. He started to make gestures, pointing to Wang Chao, pointing to himself, and making a gesture of crossing his hands. Then he took out his racket from the bag and showed it to Wang Chao.
Wang Chao I'm totally baffled, but when I see my brother's racket, I can't take my eyes away.
All I can say is that this racket is... very cool.
It turned out to be an irregular polygonal racket.
This racket uses the racket handle as the central axis. The left and right sides are symmetrical, but the upper and lower sides are asymmetrical. The area of the upper half is larger than that of an ordinary oval racket, while the lower half is smaller. The sharp obtuse angles on the edges of the racket are full of some kind of performance art arrogance. Against the handsome face and brilliant blond hair of the young man, Wang Chao suddenly felt that this should not be a player, but an artist.
So... maybe he really is an artist?
This racket is probably not for playing ball, but some kind of performance art, right?
Wang Chao tried to use his poor English skills to make up a word: artist?
The little brother was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter and shook his head repeatedly.
Wang Chao blinked and came up with another word: joker?
The little brother shook his head harder and then jabbered again. Finding it useless, he forced the racket into Wang Chao's hand and motioned for him to watch it carefully.
Wang Chao was a little uneasy, but after all, in public, he was not worried about the other party's forced buying and selling, so he studied it carefully. He tapped the unrubbered part of the racket with his knuckles, listened carefully to the sound, felt the elasticity, and pressed the rubber on both sides with his fingers. The result was a bit surprising.
Because both the blade and the rubber of this racket are of excellent quality. It is not flashy, but a truly good racket.
So, this guy is really here to compete?
Wang Chao thought about it carefully, but he never expected that among the top fifteen players Men's Singles in the world, there was such a strange person.
Europeans are enthusiastic by nature. After getting the racket back, this guy chatted with Wang Chao for a long time. The main way of communication was that you talked about yours and I talked about mine. I pretended that you understood me, and you pretended that I understood you. So Wang Chao was talking about the food experience in the restaurant. As for what the guy said, only God knows.
Five minutes later, the little brother said goodbye to Wang Chao, and gave Wang Chao a big hug warmly before leaving.
Wang Chao Just took a breath and ate a rice ball, someone else sat down opposite.
This time it was a short-haired boy with a dull expression, slightly flat facial features, single eyelids, and thin lips. He had the most common external features of people from a certain peninsula in East Asia, so Wang Chao recognized him immediately as the Kimchi Country contestant.
Kimchi Country player said, "*&*&*&...%%) (".
Wang Chao: "..."
Contestant Kimchi Country also understood. He stretched out his index finger and pointed at his own chest, and then at Wang Chao's chest. His movements were strong and powerful, with the sound of the wind. Then he smiled coldly, raised his head proudly, and turned to leave.
Wang Chao is a little confused.
He could probably tell that this man was here to declare war.
But he didn't know what was going on. He obviously didn't know anyone, so why did people keep coming to interfere with his meal?
He looked around.
He didn't pay attention just now, but when he started to actively observe, with his extremely keen perception, he found that many people in the restaurant were looking at him indifferently, and only seven steps away from him, a handsome black-haired Asian boy was using tongs to put sushi on his plate, glancing in this direction while returning it.
Wang Chao sighed and waited silently.
He hoped that this young man would come over quickly, because this man was none other than Taiwan Island supernova Lin Zijun, at least someone who spoke Chinese, and Wang Chao happened to ask him what happened.
But Lin Zijun is an introvert and shy person. He glanced at Wang Chao once, twice, and three times, as if he was affectionate, but after taking a look, he reluctantly walked away with the plate in hand...
Wang Chao is very helpless.
Fortunately, there was another sound soon, and a third person sat down in front of him.
Wang Chao glanced at it and felt a little headache.
He also knew this person, he was Zhang Benkuang, the talented young man who had recently become famous as Sakura Country.
But what's the use of knowing? His understanding of Sakura language is limited to a few words such as "Yada", "Yabai" and "Yameida", which are only suitable for special occasions and have no use in daily social interactions.
Zhang Benkuang spoke, "Hello, I am Zhang Benkuang, nice to meet you."
His voice was a little hoarse, probably because he was only fifteen years old and still in the process of changing his voice.
But what surprised Wang Chao was that Zhang Benkuang actually spoke fluent Chinese.
Wang Chao couldn't help but ask, "Have you ever studied Chinese specifically?"
He wasn't surprised.
After all, over the years, Sakura Country players have liked to come to China to play in various leagues to improve their skills. Over the years, every generation of "first brother" and "first sister" in Sakura Country have almost all been trained in the Chinese Table Tennis Super League competition, and they have also achieved excellent results.
Therefore, in the Sakura Country table tennis team, Chinese is the second lingua franca. This sentence is really not an exaggeration at all.
But Zhang Benkuang smiled and said, "Don't you know? I am originally Chinese, and my hometown is Western Sichuan Province."
He roughly explained it to Wang Chao. It turned out that Zhang Benkuang's original name was Zhang Kuang, and his father's surname was Zhang. He was originally a professional player from Western Sichuan Province. He only came to in search of better development after retirement. Sakura Country worked, and then Zhang Kuang was born. Considering that the competition in China was too fierce, his father simply chose the Sakura Country registration for his child, and also changed the original Chinese surname "Zhang" to the Sakura Country surname "Zhang Ben".
Even in today's era, many people are still worried about the issue of players' re-registration and naturalization, but in Wang Chao's view, this is actually just a purely personal choice for their future. There is nothing wrong with it, and there is no need to go beyond the basics and have something to do with patriotism and the like.
Facts have proved that Zhang's father's choice was correct. Zhang Benkuang, who might not have been able to succeed in China, started to make rapid progress after coming to Sakura Country. Today, he is already a super genius praised by the media in Sakura Country. He has also participated in four international open tournaments in the past few months and won a bronze medal.
Don't look down on a bronze medal... Although the Chinese players were soft-hearted in winning the gold medal, for other national table tennis associations, winning the bronze medal is really a celebration.
So now, Sakura Country media have directly compared Zhang Benkuang with Bay Island Lin Zijun, saying that Zhang Benkuang is the leader of the new generation of world table tennis "anti-China".
After figuring out the whole story, Wang Chao felt a little more cordial towards Zhang Benkuang and asked, "Did something happen? From the moment I came in until now, it seems like everyone is secretly looking at me."
Zhang Benkuang was a little surprised. "Don't you know?"
Wang Chao shook his head.
"Didn't you receive the brochure about the competition when you checked in?" Zhang Benkuang said, "You should read it carefully. It contains not only the detailed arrangements about the competition rules and competition schedule, but also the specific information of all participating players."
He paused and said with a smile, "Everyone else's information is only one page, but your information takes five pages. In order to highlight your importance, they also specially rated a Huaping new generation Six Little Dragons. Your nickname is Unrivaled Divine Dragon, ranked first among Six Little Dragons, is known as one of the biggest favorites for T2 Diamond Match to win this year, and its support rate is second only to Bay Island player Lin Zijun."
Wang Chao people are all numb.
What have you done?
I have been playing Table Tennis First Division for more than two months. Table Tennis First Division is the lowest-end professional league in China.
Then I had five pieces of personal information, and became the top of Huaping new generation Six Little Dragons?
There is actually a nickname Unrivaled Divine Dragon?
This unparalleled talent, if I remember correctly, it should have just been decided by Cai Guodong at the national team training base yesterday, right?
In other words, the information about myself in this booklet was also produced by Sakura Country who worked overtime yesterday?
Wang Chao smelled a very clear atmosphere of conspiracy.
This is a complete compliment!
Praising and killing himself is also praising and killing Hua Ping.
The higher he is elevated, the worse he will be scolded when he loses. Along with this, Huaping may have to face a lot of ridicule.
Zhang Benkuang Seeing Wang Chao's expression change, he couldn't help but be amused. "My teacher said that you must have offended a big shot in our my country Table Tennis Association, so others would target you like this. He asked me not to tell you these speculations, because it is easy to offend people... But I am Chinese after all, so I thought I should take this opportunity to remind you."
Thanks to "Mengyu" for the 512+100+100 coin reward. Thanks to "Luzhen" for the 1500+186 coins reward.
Thanks to "Autumn Wind Small Building" for the 100 coin reward.
(To be clear, regarding Zhang Ben, I will not criticize him, nor will I specifically criticize him. I am annoyed by him yelling during games, but objectively I understand his behavior, because yelling can indeed help release. After all, Wang Chao still yelled out... A super evolution. At the same time, there are a lot of taboos in writing online articles, and I don't dare to express many things, let alone international friends, so whenever it involves real-life prototypes, I will try my best to present him as a pure athlete. Please understand this.)