All six young players started from the qualifiers, yet in the end, only one of them actually made it into the main draw. The other five were all eliminated.
Of those five eliminated youngsters, three had lost to experienced veteran players from non-Chinese associations, while the other two had respectively lost to rising players their own age from Kimchi Country and Sweden.
It was worth mentioning that the Swedish player who had eliminated the Chinese table tennis youngster was none other than Morad, the player who had once wielded a polygonal racket at T2.
Losing to veterans was understandable, but losing to young players from non-Chinese associations of the same age was a real problem. It proved that China's reserve talent had fallen behind that of other countries.
Cai Guodong took it rather calmly. After the first day of qualifiers, he said in an interview with Huashi Sports Channel, "Our young players have never held an especially obvious advantage on the world stage. That is determined by our training system. But please rest assured, our players have greater potential for growth. Once they truly begin building their technical and tactical systems, they will quickly pull ahead of their peers from non-Chinese associations."
At that point, Chinese table tennis was generally still optimistic.
But after yesterday's matches concluded, the coaching staff could no longer remain optimistic.
As soon as play began that morning, the sole youngster who had made the main draw lost in the first round. His opponent was Sissifield Patrick, the German player ranked nineteenth in the world.
Sissifield had performed terribly at T2, going out in the first round, and even his actual play had been merely average. As a result, many Chinese fans did not think much of him.
Yet against the Chinese youngster, he played with