In this Olympic cycle, in the face of supernovas emerging from table tennis associations around the world, although Huaping has managed to survive until now without any major mistakes, and even suppressed the European table tennis world that was about to gain momentum, there is one thing that many discerning people can see: the newcomers launched by Huaping seem to be a little bit behind in talent?
On the male table tennis side, non-Chinese associations has a pervert like Hook who combines the three major talents of uncanny strength, extreme speed and subtlety.
On the female table tennis side, there are non-Chinese associations and Ichikawa Mima, a pervert who combines the two talents of being meticulous and extremely fast.
Huaping launched Wang Chao and Lu Feiyang last year.
Lu Feiyang performed well in his debut, but his performance since then has been mediocre and he has no obvious talent.
Wang Chao claims to have the unique Unrivaled talent, but what fans around the world can see with the naked eye is actually just a tiny bit. The rest belong to the category of IQ, not physical talent.
As for the National Second Team players Sun Zhongwen, Table Tennis Super League players Gao Mingyuan, Liang Kunpeng and others who have been launched since then, they either have no talent or only have one talent, which is incredible.
Even for the current invincible twin stars of Huaping, Sun Tianlong and Luo Jiu, in fact, only one of them combined is mediocre.
Although there are endless talents on the women's team, they are not too outstanding in terms of individual physical talents. The reason why the top 3 can steadily suppress Ichikawa Mima is not because they can keep up with Yichuan's speed, but because they have too much competition experience and too strong basic skills in stalemate.
Rather than saying that Chinese Women's National Table Tennis Team's strength is due to talent, it is better to say that it is due to the masculine style of women's table tennis that Chinese Women's National Table Tennis Team has been advocating and advocating for a long time.
Therefore, during this period, some bad remarks are actually brewing in the depths of the water.
"In such a big country, China, with a population of more than one billion, can't you find a few talented players?"
"Chinese people are actually not very good at playing table tennis. They are able to achieve this result probably because their training system is more advanced."
"Our Hook has almost wiped out Huaping by himself before he has received much formal training. If he is allowed to train for a few more years, hehe..."
"So the reason why Hua Guo has been strong for so many years is probably because we didn't pay enough attention to it. When we started to pay attention to it, they gradually failed."
"After all, the national system is good enough to have been able to thrive for so many years."
From this point of view, the rise of Fan Xiaodong today can be regarded as a very iconic milestone event.
Because he finally unlocked the setting of "Chinese table tennis players have multiple talents" today.
When he found the flaw of Wang Chao twice in a row during short battles on the stage and hit the winning goal, his performance in touch was recognized by all insiders and outsiders on and off the court, inside and outside the circle.
"Another Microscopic Precision level special player."
"Oh my God, he actually suppressed Wang Chao from the small ball in the table. I can't believe my eyes."
"Is he letting his guard down? It shouldn't be right? So is Wang Chao underestimating his opponent? That's probably not the case, right? After all, as far as I know, Wang Chao has never had any history of underestimating his opponent or slacking off since his debut. His technical stability is simply outrageous."
"Then it means that Fan Xiaodong really came from behind and outdid Wang Chao in the stage battle?"
"If you put it this way, doesn't he already rank among the five people with the best hands on the planet?"
"Idiot, if he joins in, he will be one of the six. And he can even suppress Wang Chao, so how can he be only in the top six? He should clearly be in the top four, or even the top three. The only ones who are qualified to stand in front of him are Luo Jiu and Sun Tianlong."
"It turns out that this is Huaping's real strong newcomer in this Olympic cycle. The previous Lu Feiyang was just a smoke bomb."
When Wang Chao regained the right to serve, the mood of all the spectators inside and outside the stadium, and even Wang Chao's own mood, were completely different from before.
8:2, this is an extremely disparate score.
But at this moment, the two sides standing on both sides of the table were as solemn as if it was 10:10.
Every next ball is crucial.
This has nothing to do with the outcome of the first game, but only the mentality of both sides in this game.
Those who win gain confidence and can continue to score until the end of the game as long as they maintain their original tactics.
The loser loses the opportunity and must find a way to change his style of play and seek a breakthrough, otherwise he will be completely defeated.
At such a critical moment that attracted much attention, Wang Chao made a short backspin.
There were low exclamations in the arena.
The audience thought Wang Chao would serve differently.
After all, he had just failed twice in a row.
Of course, this does not completely mean that Fan Xiaodong feels better, because after all, the player's on-the-spot performance is also very important, but it at least means that today, at this moment, Fan Xiaodong feels better.
The most important thing for athletes when competing is to seek changes based on the actual situation at the time, maximize their strengths and avoid weaknesses, and avoid the most important and the least important.
How come Wang Chao is really at odds with Fan Xiaodong?
Almost all non-Chinese associations coaches who were also watching the game shook their heads slightly at this moment, thinking that the 18-year-old Wang Chao player was probably unconvinced after the loss, so he chose to prove himself single-mindedly.
After all, no matter how mature Wang Chao player may be, he is still young after all, and it is normal for him to still have this kind of irrational blood and courage in his body.
Given the fierce internal competition in Huaping over the years, it is completely understandable for Wang Chao to act impulsively when facing his teammates. This is a competition for the next generation of Huaping leaders.
In competitions, the most fearful thing is blind confidence and obsession. The most important thing is to reflect on yourself anytime and anywhere, understand the details of your personal status at that time and place, and then formulate tactics according to the situation.
Not to mention Wang Chao, even Sun Tianlong, who is known as the best player in the world, has actively avoided the small ball in the table many times in the past seven years, just because he felt that his touch was not flexible enough at the time, and he could not fight the opponent for the time being.
Faced with this impeccable short backspin, Fan Xiaodong naturally chose to swing short.
The ball lands near the center of the table on Wang Chao.
This is a silent signal.
If you fall on the backhand position, you can backhand twist, and if you fall on the forehand position, you can Forehand Flick. No matter how difficult the attack is, it is possible after all.
Only if it falls in the center will it be impossible to get off the board.
So Fan Xiaodong means: Come on, let's continue to swing short.
Wang Chao swings back, and the ball also lands near the center of the table on Fan Xiaodong's side.
The two sides once again fell into a situation of fighting each other.
In the blink of an eye, six rounds have passed. Both sides are as steady as a rock without any mistakes. The rotation of the ball is changing. Regardless of the height and landing point, they are almost exactly the same. They all cross the net with just the right posture and land in almost the same place, without giving the opponent any chance to take the lead.
This is definitely an extremely high-quality on-stage short-swing battle.
This kind of ball is actually not good-looking, because it is not intense at all, and there is no change. It is like a movie that keeps replaying. The careful postures of both players, as well as the subtle control and detailed adjustment of the power at the moment when the racket touches the ball. In fact, the kung fu is all invisible to the eyes. What the audience can see are only the small movements repeated by the two people.
But at this moment, the arena was eerily quiet. The audience stared at the small silver ball with their eyes wide open, not daring to take a breath.
They cannot understand the details, but this does not prevent them from understanding how delicate the current situation is, nor does it prevent them from wanting to see who makes the first mistake in the end.
When you put your mind to it, even the most ugly scenes can turn into critical moments.
Six more rounds passed in the blink of an eye, and both sides still had no flaws.
Up to this moment, this ball is already the short ball with the most rounds that Wang Chao has played since his debut.
In last year's T2, he once taught Kimchi Country player Zhu Shixian with pure stumbling. After that game, Zhu Shixian almost vomited because of the stumbling, and he swore to Next time you meet Wang Chao, you must throw off your arms and start working directly. You will never do Zhang Fei's embroidery work again. After all, one is that you can't play, the other is that you are frustrated when you play, and the third is that you always fall into the trap. Since you are losing anyway, why not lose more vigorously?
After the match last year, many people in the world table tennis circles speculated whether Wang Chao would play such a weird game in the future. The final conclusion was no, because everyone can see that the reason why Wang Chao played Zhu Shixian like that was to attack the heart. One was to hide his strength, and the other was to save energy.
If he was playing regularly, he wouldn't need to play for so long at all.
So this is a deviant approach that can never be repeated.
At the same time, they also believe that after watching Wang Chao's game, if other players encounter Wang Chao again, even if Wang Chao wants to replicate such a game, their opponents will probably not give them a chance, right?
Sure enough, Wang Chao later met Mizutori Hato twice. Mizutori Hato tried to compete with Wang Chao, but after finding that he could not fight, he quickly changed his tactics and did not let Wang Chao play such a long round.
Fans never expected that today they would see an enhanced and upgraded version of last year's short and bizarre game.
The stability of Fan Xiaodong and the rigor of short swing are far superior to Zhu Shixian.
After all, he is young, his attention is focused enough, and his willpower is tenacious enough. He is calm and patient, and he is not afraid of being at odds with Wang Chao forever.
He just wants to prove that he can indeed suppress Wang Chao from the feel, which is very important for today's game.
The fans at the scene have already started counting.
"13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18..."
Everyone was excited.
Putting aside their love-hate attitude towards China Table Tennis, the audience obviously hopes more for Fan Xiaodong to win. After all, coming from behind and a dark horse counterattack are the correct way to open all legendary stories. Fan Xiaodong's previous defeat of Hook also made these European fans inevitably feel sad in their hearts. A trace of self-deception: If Fan Xiaodong defeats Wang Chao, it means that it is not that Hook is not good, but that Fan Xiaodong is too strong. In this case, our Hook can still save some face.
What the audience didn't know was that while everyone was waiting for Fan Xiaodong to perform a miracle and expressed their high opinion of him, only Qin Huachang, who was far away in a hospital in the imperial capital, was a little confused at this moment.
"This isn't right."
"How come we actually got into a fight?"
"That's not what I taught him before."
"This child..."
Qin Huachang is very depressed.
He is the person who knows Fan Xiaodong best in the world, because he witnessed the entire transformation process of Fan Xiaodong with his own eyes and participated in the planning.
Therefore, he is also very clear about Fan Xiaodong's talent for subtlety and ability to fight shortcomings.
He asked Fan Xiaodong to hide the feel, and Fan Xiaodong did a good enough job.
In the game against Hook, Fan Xiaodong first tried to defend, and then tried to fight violence with violence. After that game, everyone felt that Fan Xiaodong's defense probably couldn't guard against Hook. After all, it looked like he was beaten badly.
Only Qin Huachang knew that Fan Xiaodong was hiding his stupidity at that time.
If a careful reader re-reads all the descriptions of the first two games of that game, he will be very surprised to find that in the first two games, in all the parts related to short backspin serves and short swings on the table, Fan Xiaodong took the initiative to throw the ball to Hook's bottom line, or returned the ball high after up to three rounds, giving Hook a chance to attack conventionally.
At that time, he was already consciously refusing to fight.
At that time, everyone only knew that Hook had the same feel as Microscopic Precision level, so they subconsciously felt that Fan Xiaodong could not beat Hook. Such performance was normal.
But they have forgotten that although Hook feels good enough, his technique is rough. Even if he is meticulous, in fact, when facing Chinese National Table Tennis Team's main level opponent, theoretically speaking, he should not be able to take advantage of any short balls in the table.
In the third game after Fan Xiaodong switched to the violence-to-violence mode, with the score at 5:1, he was so excited that he forgot to hide his clumsiness. He even forced Hook to reveal his flaws during a fight inside the table, and then scored with a strong attack.
It's just that at that time, all the viewers were attracted by his crazy violence and did not realize what this scene actually represented.
Therefore, Fan Xiaodong is actually very smart. Although he does not have rich competition experience, he can fine-tune his strategy during the competition. He chose to hide his clumsiness without consulting anyone.
(I saw an old friend in the book review area saying that it is unreasonable to hide the feel of Fan Xiaodong by typing Hook. In fact, I left a foreshadowing when I wrote it. I will explain it here. I hope you will be satisfied)