In a sense, the mixed doubles event at this Open had started strong and faded weak.
Right from the opening, surprises had come one after another, with climax after climax. First, the newly formed pair of Ichikawa Mima and Niuwa Xiaoxi had upset the former Asian Games champions, Kim Bong and Kim Jong. Then, Daehan Minguk's young first-time entrants had crushed Lin Zijun and Zhen Jing, a pair widely recognized by the international table tennis world as part of the first tier in mixed doubles.
After that, Wang Chao and Tang Yuanyuan began their consecutive slaughter, smashing both Sakura Country's top pair, newly recognized as a first-tier team, and Daehan Minguk's young pair 4–0.
It could be said that all four matches had been upsets, all highlights, all iconic scenes. The gamblers outside the venue had cried for their mothers and fathers, wailing to heaven and earth over their losses.
And if one included the gamblers Qin Huachang had fleeced during the Lin Zijun versus Hook match, then roughly eighty percent of the foreign gamblers had already been wiped out, leaving only the bookmakers to rake in a fortune.
As for how Zhang Benkuang and Hayata Hannah had made it to the finals, it was really all down to good luck.
Every opponent they had faced along the way had been cannon fodder the author had been too lazy even to name—except for the Beautiful Country Combination, Lilith and Kazik, who still had some use later on.
Thus, once they truly met the Tang Dynasty Combination, public opinion overwhelmingly favored the Tang Dynasty Combination. On foreign forums, polls gave the Tang Dynasty Combination a ninety-seven percent chance of winning. The pitiful remaining three percent had most likely been sentimental votes cast by Sakura Country fans.
The match had already begun