Wang Chao directly hooked the ball at the beginning. At the last moment when the racket touched the ball, he made a fake movement of shaking his body. While his body was shaking, his swinging wrist quietly changed its direction and swung out, switching the serve to Reverse Spin.
Obviously, he wanted to deceive Ichikawa Mima.
But Ichikawa Mima was not deceived. She quickly threw the ball back and inserted it directly into Tang Yuanyuan's backhand baseline.
From this response alone, we can see that Ichikawa Mima has conducted in-depth research on Tang Dynasty Combination.
One of the significant differences between mixed doubles and singles is that when serving, the ball is not served to the entire table. Instead, the ball must be served from our right table to the opponent's right table. This is an iron rule.
The consequence of this iron law is that the server must stand on the right side of the table first. If the receiver wants to mobilize the two players on the server and force them to move, the simplest and most direct way is, of course, to throw the ball to the opponent's bottom line on the right side of the table.
But Ichikawa Mima ignored the bottom line of the backhand position.
This is because she knows the tacit understanding of Wang Chao and Tang Yuanyuan and does not care about this most basic adjustment. At the same time, Tang Yuanyuan actually has an obvious bias in doubles. Her forehand is obviously better than her backhand.
Whether this is good or bad has nothing to do with the player's own forehand and backhand skills. It is purely because in doubles, more emphasis is placed on killing the board, and Tang Yuanyuan's position in Tang Dynasty Combination is not a support. Therefore, she needs to assume the offensive task, and her forehand attack is obviously easier to exert than her backhand attack.
To put it more simply, the loop she pulls out with her backhand can only kill female players, while the loop she pulls out with her forehand can kill male players.
Therefore, stopping Tang Yuanyuan's forehand is equivalent to stopping 80% of Tang Yuanyuan's kills.
In fact, the world table tennis community can see this. After all, Tang Dynasty Combination's playing style is not complicated. But why didn't others do this before?
On the one hand, any player faced with Wang Chao's master-level serving skills usually cannot perfectly control the landing point of the ball. If the small ball skills in the table are not enough and the ball is forced, he may directly make a mistake in catching the ball.
On the other hand, Tang Yuanyuan itself has some predictions about how the enemy will deal with it. Many times, when you hit her backhand, you may find that Tang Yuanyuan has moved to the left as soon as the ball comes out. In the end, she can still catch the ball with her forehand. On the contrary, you have neglected the height and rotation of the ball because you put too much emphasis on the landing point. As a result, Tang Yuanyuan pulls the ball with less difficulty, and the kill board is more powerful.
Table tennis itself is a sport of prediction and counter-prediction, which are very reasonable.
The reason why Ichikawa Mima's stroke is very skillful is because she also has the other feel of Microscopic Precision level. Her stroke is effortless and her body is still stretched and relaxed. So after finishing the stroke, she quickly retreated and gave up the entire table to Niuwa Xiaoxi. There was no sloppiness in the whole process and it looked quite comfortable.
Tang Yuanyuan did not make any predictions, because Ichikawa Mima's movements were extremely small, so this move was actually somewhat concealed.
So she could only pull the ball over with her backhand.
"Wang Chao took it for granted." Hou Xijia immediately commented. "His serve is indeed world-class, but he forgot that Ichikawa Mima also has a talent for subtlety. In this game, Ichikawa Mima took the initiative to receive the ball. Wang Chao's ball is because she is not afraid of any fake moves by Wang Chao. In this case, Wang Chao's correct approach should be to give up any deception, try to serve high-quality balls, and force Ichikawa Mima to make it more difficult."
The fact is as he said, when Wang Chao's fake action failed, the quality of the serve itself was actually affected. After all, the last-minute change of Reverse Spin caused the wrist to shake too fast and the racket to rub the ball too short, which would cause the ball's spin to decrease.
It is precisely because of the lack of absolute mass of the ball that Ichikawa Mima can so easily throw the ball directly to the backhand baseline of Tang Yuanyuan. The landing point is extremely precise, almost landing on the corner of the edge of the left table.
With such a long ball, it would be great if Tang Yuanyuan could predict the forehand pull, but if she could not predict it, then pull out a billiard ball with her backhand. Even if her strength is much stronger than that of a normal female player, the quality of the ball would still not be high.
As mentioned before, the offensive action of pulling the ball is actually a winner. It is equivalent to vetoing all the subtle changes in the previous ball. There is only one choice left: Can my offensive power beat you to death?
Obviously, Tang Yuanyuan couldn't beat Niuwa Xiaoxi to death with a strong backhand loop shot. Instead, it gave Niuwa Xiaoxi a perfect topspin shot.
This is a great opportunity for the Sakura Country combination.
Wang Chao took half a step back, with one foot in front and one behind, staring closely at Niuwa Xiaoxi's movements, preparing to receive the opponent's strong attack.
But now you can see the weirdness of the player Niuwa Xiaoxi.
If this kind of ball were replaced by other professional players, a hundred people would have a hundred choices to forcefully rush sideways, because this is a great opportunity to take the initiative.
But Niuwa Xiaoxi didn't. He stood in front of the table, his feet as if they were nailed to the ground, refusing to move. Seeing the ball flying toward his chest, he stretched his arms straight out to meet the ball without hesitation.
This action is actually very dangerous.
Because the longer the ball is, the easier it is to turn into a chasing ball. If you don't step back, it will press against your chest, leaving you without enough depth to stretch your arms. And if you forcefully shrink your arms to catch the ball, you will obviously be unable to exert force or create spin.
Niuwa Xiaoxi's choice is: I won't let you resist me. I will intercept you before you resist my chest.
This is a choice that 99% of professional players would not make.
Because as we all know, a table tennis ball is most powerful when it is first touched, with both speed and rotation at its peak. When it flies in the air, its power will be greatly reduced with every extra mile it flies. Therefore, once professional players encounter a powerful ball, their correct idea must be to let it fly as long as possible while maintaining their own bottom line.
Tang Yuanyuan Why do you just back off the stage when you encounter a ball you can't catch in doubles? This is essentially the same principle.
But Niuwa Xiaoxi not only sticks to the table, he also pushes the racket forward. The consequence of this is that the distance between the ball contacting Tang Yuanyuan's racket and contacting his racket is very short. So he is faced with the peak moment when the ball is the fastest and spins the strongest. If he wants to restrain the power of this peak moment, he needs to pay more price.
This price can be stronger strength, a more exquisite touch, or of course it can be a gamble that I am lucky enough to be able to block the ball in a thrilling way even when the success rate of catching the ball is very low.
At this time, due to the physiological structure of the human body, since Niuwa Xiaoxi does not turn sideways, it is impossible for him to hold the racket horizontally to rub the ball. His outstretched hand holds the racket like a knife. When the ball flies over, he tilts the racket slightly at an angle, so the ball flying over with great momentum directly hits the left side of his racket.
The moment he touched the ball, Niuwa Xiaoxi's racket deflected slightly again, as if in a very short period of time, he was subtly forcing the ball that was about to fly up from the racket down with the edge of the racket. Then he stretched out his arm and continued to rush forward. Through this posture, the side of his racket and the ball formed a very strange friction in one direction.
Something amazing happened.
The ball's violent topspin was abruptly stopped, and then the ball made an almost 90-degree turn in the air and landed on the left side of the Wang Chao table near the edge of the net. In the next second, it flew directly out of the side of the table.
Wang Chao stood there without even moving, watching the ball fly out.
1:0, Sakura Country combination score.
A series of exclamations sounded from the audience, followed by crackling applause. Many fans had surprise in their eyes because they really didn't understand the ball at that moment.
Although the details and technical content of this ball would require thousands of words, in fact, in the eyes of the audience, the only thing Niuwa Xiaoxi did at that moment was to poke the ball directly at the oncoming ball with his racket. However, he missed the point, so the ball did not hit the bottom of his racket head-on, but hit the rubber on one side of him. After the collision, it suddenly stopped and changed direction as if by magic.
The whole process simply seems to be inconsistent with macroscopic physical mechanics.
In fact, even the director thought the ball was weird, so many large screens above the venue began to replay the scene in slow motion simultaneously.
But to be honest, there is indeed a threshold for professional table tennis competitions, and it is not low. Even if the camera is slowed down, you still can't understand what should be incomprehensible.
"Have you seen it, audience friends, this is the truth I found out yesterday when I did my homework. This guy named Niuwa Xiaoxi actually has a very good touch, especially his side cuts. It can be described as miraculous. You probably didn't know just now Let me tell you how difficult that ball is. If the difficulty factor of the ultra-long-distance side cut that Wang Chao has used many times is 7, then the difficulty of his forced high-speed side cut in the table is at least 12. It is not an exaggeration at all."
He looked at the barrage and continued with a smile, "I didn't say he was better than Wang Chao. I just commented on his side cut. The difficulty is indeed extremely high, but his handling is actually wrong because the risk is too great and the error rate is extremely high. I made statistics yesterday., He has frequently used this kind of side-cutting action in past games, but the success rate is actually only about 50%. Of course, even 50% is very impressive, because other people will not do this kind of thing at all, and even if they try to do it, the success rate is likely to be less than 10%."
In any case, it was the Sakura Country combination that took the lead on the first goal, which also made many fans in the Hou Xijia live broadcast room feel a little nervous.
"I think Wang Chao's next ball should focus on high-quality backspin. We can't let Ichikawa Mima handle the ball too easily. In fact, it's also possible to serve Bullet Serve. It's best to serve it as long as possible and to the baseline. Don't be afraid of Ichikawa Mima Direct attack, because Ichikawa Mima's absolute strength is not enough, and she can't draw a circle. Once she comes out, her attack power is not very powerful, Tang Yuanyuan can handle it completely." Hou Xijia said this before Wang Chao served again.
Little did he know that at almost the same time, Ge Miao, who was sitting behind He Jingping in the competition venue thousands of miles away, was asking, "Does it matter?"
"After all, we are new opponents. We are just testing their quality first. There is no need to care too much about the outcome of the first few goals." He Jingping sneered slightly, "I think Ichikawa Mima is a bit blindly confident."
Ge Miao was stunned. "I meant Niuwa Xiaoxi, the side cut. Who told you Ichikawa Mima?"
But He Jingping pointed forward. "Look, now Wang Chao is going to take action for real."
Wang Chao served again, and it turned out to be a high throw that he rarely used.
When the ball fell from a height of three meters, Ichikawa Mima's whole body was completely tense, her body squatted slightly, and she was level with the table. Her eyes turned up slightly, staring at Wang Chao's every move.
She is confident, otherwise she would not risk the world's disapproval and take the initiative to face Wang Chao as a female player.
But she didn't dare to take it lightly, because she had thoroughly studied all of Wang Chao's public games, and she knew exactly how strong Wang Chao's serving ability was.
She needs to see clearly every subtle movement change of Wang Chao's wrist, arm, and elbow during the period from when the ball falls to when it hits the ball and when it leaves the racket. Even if she misses even a tiny bit of detail, she may end up with a serve that is totally inconsistent with her judgment.
Only when the ball officially leaves the racket does it mean that the properties of the ball will not change anymore.
She saw that the ball was falling freely at the central axis of Wang Chao's body, neither to the left nor to the right.
She saw Wang Chao's body begin to sway in an ambiguous manner. The racket was erected, with the side edge of the racket pointed in front, and she couldn't tell which side of the rubber he was going to use to catch the ball.
When she saw the ball falling to the height of Wang Chao's eyes, Wang Chao stretched the racket forward. The side edge of the racket was still shaking. It was not until the last moment that she suddenly tilted slightly to the left and caught the ball.
Then Wang Chao's arms are moved forward, and the body leans forward. It looks like a simple backspin ball purely borrowing the gravitational potential energy of a high toss ball.
Ichikawa Mima stared at it so hard that she almost thought it was really a high-quality backspin ball with strong rotation.
But at the last moment, she still observed that Wang Chao's arms and wrists were swinging abnormally, and after the ball flew out of the racket, his arms even swung out unnaturally.
The trend of serving in modern table tennis is increasingly focused on extremely small hand movements, extremely fast ball contact, and extremely short friction processes, which further increases the deceptiveness of deceptive movements. The indicators of rubber equipment are becoming more and more precise and detailed. This results in any player using any racket to serve, even if the movements are exactly the same, the final ball sent may be completely different.
Ichikawa Mima believed in her own observation and judgment. Considering that the spin of this lofted ball must be extremely strong, she did not dare to control the ball's landing point to the left bottom line of the opposite table when handling the ball. Instead, she slightly lowered the difficulty and just wanted to hit the ball halfway to the left side of Tang Yuanyuan's body.
But she never expected that as soon as her racket hit the ball, she clearly felt that the direction of rotation was wrong. The next moment, the ball spun and flew directly from the side.
1:1, Tang Dynasty Combination tied the score.