As usual, the first match of a major event must be eye-catching, and because mixed doubles is ranked at the top of all competitions, the organizers undoubtedly selected the first match of Wang Chao and Tang Yuanyuan.
This time World Table Tennis Championships was held at Budapest, Hungary. Tang Dynasty Combination's opponent was a pair from Hungary. Although the strength of the two sides was very different, with the bonus of being the host, at least the Hungarian pair got more cheers from the fans at the scene, which barely added a little more antagonism to this one-sided game.
Everyone felt that this game must be won 4:0.
But in the end, the game lasted for 57 minutes, and Tang Dynasty Combination only won 4:2.
The Hungarian pair is a new partner and has not participated in any open competition before. In fact, the Hungarian Table Tennis Association has been controversial since March about whether to form a mixed doubles partner. The reason is that they have no idea how to play mixed doubles, and everyone is at a loss.
It was delayed until June this year, when Wang Chao and Tang Yuanyuan won the mixed doubles championship in Malaysia and Tang Dynasty Combination became famous in one battle, the Hungarian Table Tennis Association finally decided to form a mixed doubles because they felt that they had understood what the mixed doubles was all about, and then they only needed to copy the homework according to the path provided by Huaping.
But they did not sign up for the competition in the following July and August. The reason was that the players themselves lacked confidence and felt that they were no match for the powerful combinations in the world. They hoped to train quietly and then come to World Table Tennis Championships for a sneak attack. Their requirements were not high. As long as they could win two rounds, no, even if they only won one round, they would be considered to live up to the expectations of domestic fans.
However, their luck in the draw was not good, and they directly drew the World Champion combination in the first game.
So last night, the two players were in despair. They practiced late into the night, discussed until midnight, and tossed and turned until the early morning. There was always only one question they focused on: How to ensure that they can score in every game and not get shaved?
But in the end, they didn't come up with an effective way.
So today they came with a tragic mood to die. Before going on the field, both partners finally confirmed the principles of today's game: go up and fight with all your strength, fight to the death, and consider diving after catching the ball, for no other reason than to prove that you have really worked hard. In this way, even if you lose miserably, you will not be criticized too badly by domestic fans. After all, you have shown your attitude, and it is not shameful to lose to Huaping.
They never expected that the game would lead to a brilliant record of 4:2. Although they lost, Titie was proud of the defeat. They simply became the heroes of the Hungarian Table Tennis Association. After the game, they hugged each other with tears in their eyes. The male player took off his jersey and threw it into the stands, and then ran around the field shirtless and with his hands raised. People who didn't know it thought he had won.
But the fans at the scene were also really considerate.
Didn't you hear the Hungarian fans in the stands cheering like crazy? It's like he won the mixed doubles championship.
This is understandable. If one day the Chinese football team scores two goals against the Brazilian team in the world arena, the whole country will probably celebrate.
In short, after this game is over, the outside world is quite likely to explode.
It's not because of how well the Hungarian team played, but because Tang Dynasty Combination did a bit poorly.
To be precise, it was Wang Chao who beat him like a piece of shit.
Throughout the game, he basically didn't attack much. He kept chipping, swinging, skimming, rubbing, and chipping the ball. It was as if he suddenly forgot that there is a kind of spin called topspin. He played very skillfully and seemed to work hard, but the problem is that no matter how strong he is, he is not a god after all. If he wants to score, he still needs to rely on offense.
So the result of such a fight was that although his work successfully scored a lot of points, there were many times when he was directly picked off by the opponent and slapped to death.
Don't forget, European players generally have good mid-range stalemate skills, and the Hungarian male player in the pair he faced happened to have a lot of brute force. Once he found an opportunity and encountered a billiard ball, he would just call it with a board without saying a word, regardless of whether he could hit it or not.
This is reasonable, after all, the Hungarian team's goal is to score at least one point in each game, and they have already made up their minds to fight throughout the game.
Therefore, even though the success rate of this kind of fight was not high, because Wang Chao gave too many opportunities, the Hungarian combination still made some beautiful attacks.
In the second half of the game, Wang Chao still did not attack. Instead, Tang Yuanyuan started to attack, directly fighting the male player on the opposite side as a female player. Even though she was born with supernatural powers, she was still a girl. After all, she could not defeat her opponent head-on.
Therefore, the victory in this game was ugly. The reason why it did not capsize in the end was just because the opponent's technology and coordination were really far behind ours.
By the time Tang Dynasty Combination finished the game, the outside world simply suspected that there was something huge going on inside Huaping.
But then Huaping proved otherwise with actual actions, because the second pair of mixed doubles players Wang Yu and Gao Mingyuan's "Underworld Combination" played in the third round of the morning, doing A clean 4:0 victory over England, a new pair formed by the Table Tennis Association. This pairing was actually not weak. The male player was none other than England's current ace player, Pike.
There is not much suspense in the following games. Because of the lottery rules, the first day of the games is basically a strong team against a weak team, such as the Sakura Country combination, Taiwan Island Combination, Kimchi Combination, which are ranked high in the world. It is impossible for combinations to meet each other. The reason why England Combination met Underworld Combination in the first round is actually because neither of these combinations is ranked in the world. Although they are not weak, they are not seeds. Of course, they can be assigned at will. If they meet, it can only be said to be bad luck.
In the afternoon of the same day, Tang Dynasty Combination had another battle. The opponents were old acquaintances: Kazik and Lilith of the Beautiful Country.
The Beautiful Country's table tennis level is neither high nor low. Compared with Europe, he is definitely a rookie, but in North America, Nagada is among the tallest among the short ones. Kazik is the best brother in North America., Lilith is the No. 1 sister in North America. The two partners achieved good results in the open competitions in June and July this year. Then in August, they were cross-matched with Tang Dynasty Combination and achieved nothing.
But this time the cross-matching was still of great help to the the Beautiful Country Table Tennis Association. Although Kazik had some soy sauce, Wang Chao gave everything to Lilith. Even though he did not achieve results at the time, after returning, Lilith summarized the valuable experience of these mixed doubles, studied it in detail with Kazik, and made improvements little by little. Now, strictly speaking, this pair has almost reached the world-class level, at least, enough to compete with the German combination of Sissifield and Sources.
Having said all this, I don't want to say how strong the Beautiful Country Combination is, but I want to say that they are much stronger than the Hungarian group.
Therefore, the outside world's speculation about this game is very outrageous. Some people say that Tang Dynasty Combination will definitely win 4:0. The reason is that Wang Chao let it go in the morning, and Wang Chao will take action in the afternoon.
Some people also said that Tang Dynasty Combination might lose because Tang Dynasty Combination had a hard time playing Hungary in the morning, but the combination of the Beautiful Country is much better than Hungary.
On the surface, everyone makes sense, but there is actually only one fundamental question: Why did Wang Chao become like this?
The outside world must not understand this problem. The only reason everyone can think of is that Wang Chao is not used to his new racket yet. However, even if he is not used to it, it is not so outrageous, right? If you really don't adapt to it, just continue to use Super Luo. Why should you force yourself to adapt? Do you think World Table Tennis Championships is your training ground?
In short, it is confusing and has different opinions.
The world has developed to a very diversified level, and it can be said that one move can affect the whole body. Tang Dynasty Combination just accidentally won an ugly game in the morning, but the result was that it directly affected a large number of underground handicaps in Southeast Asia and Europe.
Why?
Because in the first few rounds of Mixed Doubles, Tang Dynasty Combination was not planned at all in these handicaps. They felt that Tang Dynasty Combination was too strong. In the past, they had to crush them all the way to win the championship. Now, when playing against weak teams, opening handicaps is no different from giving money to charity.
However, Tang Dynasty Combination behaved so ugly in the morning that the dealers had to work overtime and open the market urgently. Because this game was too difficult to guess, they went to great lengths to set a suitable odds. In the end, the odds opened by different dealers were also all kinds of strange, although most of the markets I still offered ultra-low odds for Tang Dynasty Combination, but there were also some stubborn people who did the opposite and directly offered Tang Dynasty Combination odds as high as 2.8, attracting countless funds to flow in. I made it clear that I would play this game for the rest of my life. If I win, I will be financially free, if I lose, I will get away with the money.
This game was very difficult. Wang Chao's performance seemed to be better than that in the morning, but not much better. He still did all kinds of things and tried to attack a few times. However, his efficiency was average, as if he had lost his aura. After more than fifty minutes, Tang Dynasty Combination won 4:2 and advanced to the next round with difficulty.
The status of Wang Chao has once again become a hot topic. A large number of media from various countries have tried to interview Huaping. However, Cai Guodong has issued a gag order. No matter the coach or the player, they are not allowed to make any comments on Wang Chao's performance.
This defensive attitude excites the media from all walks of life, because they are too familiar with this rhythm. Whether it is financial news, gossip, sports news or news from other walks of life, generally speaking, when the parties involved begin to refuse interviews, it is when there is a big internal problem.
"So, something is really wrong with Wang Chao?"
"It was fine during the direct race, what could go wrong in just a few days?"
"The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that he was injured during the last closed training camp. But I observed the two games carefully. Although he didn't play well, he didn't show any signs of injury."
"Is it because Wang Chao had a conflict with the coaching staff, so he deliberately broke the rules? Or is it that Wang Chao is planning to change his nationality and go abroad to play football?"
The media was very excited, but Huaping was very quiet inside.
Of course, Cai Guodong's gag order was not because of internal problems, but because he knew what Wang Chao was doing. He did not want to disrupt Wang Chao's rhythm, nor did he allow others to disrupt Wang Chao's rhythm.
Just as he unprecedentedly allowed Luo Jiu to participate in Portugal Open alone last month, it was also because he did not want to disrupt Luo Jiu's rhythm.
Everyone in Huaping can clearly see that this World Table Tennis Championships, even if there are many experts and many contestants, but looking at the essence through the complicated phenomena, it is just the first public showdown between the two senior brothers Wang Chao and Luo Jiu.
In fact, since Budapest and He Jingping came as coaches, they have rarely communicated with the two disciples because they were afraid of destroying the subtle undercurrent between the two.
Wang Chao and Luo Jiu are both extremely smart people. The smarter the person, the less dependent they are on the coach. In this matchup with World Table Tennis Championships, they agreed that the coach is an external force and once it intervenes, it will cause unfairness, so they would rather not have it.
They want to determine the outcome in front of the whole world under absolutely fair conditions.
(Brothers, please allow me to announce excitedly. I thought it was impossible for this book to have a leader, but today I finally have my first leader. Thanks to the boss "Wan Nian Shu Chi 1"! Haha, by the way, I also want to thank the boss "Haiziyuan" who has tipped me many times for the 1,500-coin reward.)