Fan Xiaodong got off to a poor start in the first game, making far too many errors. Although his ball control was solid and gave Sissifield few chances to hammer his backhand, Sissifield still seized those limited opportunities to launch fierce attacks and brutally crushed him. The final score of 11:5 came as no surprise.
The broadcast director deliberately cut to Coach Qin Huachang's expression off court, only to find that Qin Huachang looked fairly composed and did not appear overly anxious.
That made some viewers familiar with Qin Huachang rather curious.
Everyone knew that Coach Qin of Chinese table tennis had outstanding professional abilities, but his poor mental fortitude was equally legendary. He had taken fast-acting heart pills at competition venues many times in the past. During last July's World Cup final between Lin Li and Bayer, he had even suffered a heart attack and been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. Coach Wang Lu had been forced to take over the on-site coaching, and Lin Li's mentality had subsequently crumbled, costing him the gold medal.
In fact, Qin Huachang's mentality was even worse than people imagined. He occasionally got nervous enough to take medicine even when watching Sun Tianlong play live. Last year, when he watched a livestream with Wang Chao in a small Liancheng City hotel, he became too afraid to keep watching midway through and simply lay down on the bed.
In recent years, he had rarely coached Sun Tianlong on-site. Publicly, he claimed that "A Long doesn't need coaching," but in truth, Sun Tianlong's matches were simply too high-level. Once he truly encountered a powerful opponent, Qin Huachang was genuinely afraid that his heart could not take it.
It was clear just how badly he obsessed over gains and losses.
In fact, the reason