Fan Xiaodong's opening short backspin serve was naturally not meant to harm Hou Xijia, nor was he deliberately disobeying Sun Tianlong's instructions.
The truth was, Sun Tianlong's instructions to Fan Xiaodong for this match were exactly the same as his instructions to Lin Li in the previous match: play the first game on instinct.
This was not irresponsibility, but a continuation of Wang Lu's great wisdom—close your eyes and throw a barrage of brainless wild punches to disrupt all of Wang Chao's pre-match predictions about Fan Xiaodong.
In fact, this tactic worked, because Wang Chao had indeed analyzed Fan Xiaodong before the match. Based on the full course of their previous encounter and their respective strengths and weaknesses in actual play, he had guessed at the other side's likely tactical setup.
Just as Sun Tianlong had guessed that Fan Xiaodong would use sneak long serves, Wang Chao had also predicted that Fan Xiaodong would use sneak long serves.
But when Fan Xiaodong played by instinct, he subconsciously served a short backspin ball.
This showed that, at heart, he was not a kid who liked fancy tricks. He was young, simple-minded, solid in the fundamentals, and extraordinarily talented, so from the time he had started learning at the small table tennis hall in Liancheng City, he had already become accustomed to playing fundamental shots.
Short backspin was precisely synonymous with solid fundamentals.
Though surprised, Wang Chao was not affected. He steadily returned a short ball, placing it near the middle of Fan Xiaodong's side of the table.
He had a psychological edge against Fan Xiaodong. On one hand, he had watched Fan Xiaodong grow up and did not worry about him hiding some super ultimate move. On the other, he had beaten him before, which itself proved that his overall strength