On December 13, the table tennis Women's Singles and Men's Singles projects were launched at the same time, with Women's Singles still in the front and Men's Singles in the back.
In the singles competition, a total of 128 players from 56 associations around the world entered the main draw, and then they still played one round in one day.
On the 13th, it was 128 into 64.
On the 14th, it was 64 into 32.
On the 15th, 32 goes into 16.
This schedule can be said to be quite easy. After three days, the top 16 will be decided. Although there are some upsets, in general, the so-called upsets are basically concentrated in the middle and low tiers.
For example, if a player ranked over 300 in the world defeats a player ranked over 100 in the world, or a player ranked over 100 in the world defeats a player ranked over 50 in the world, this kind of upset is naturally a huge upset for the country where the contestants are located and their fans. It is a matter of national honor, but when viewed in the entire table tennis industry, it is just like a slightly larger shrimp farting in the water, causing no real ripples.
After all, those recognized giants are still maintaining the momentum of winning all the big games, winning all the small games, and a few shaving games. They are building momentum bit by bit and are preparing to face the number one enemy in their minds.
It is worth mentioning that the rule that "each association can only compete with a maximum of three players" is completely specific to Huaping, but in fact it is not that there are no other associations that have been accidentally injured.
For example, Germany is actually being cultivated as a four-horse breed, but because three of the four must be selected, Qiu Shang gave up on Men's Singles.
Of course, because Qiu Shang has the Men's Doubles project, he must appear in the German Table Tennis Association's singles list, so of course, he is the substitute player for Men's Singles.
As for Sakura Country, there are actually many rising stars. In addition to Zhang Benkuang, who is the main force, the other two people also stood out after the brutal domestic selection.
The same situation also occurs in Kimchi Country women's table tennis, Sakura Country women's table tennis, Swedish men's table tennis, Jindalai men's table tennis and other places.
Another rule for accidentally injuring non-Chinese associations is the "avoidance principle for players from the same association."
Many years ago, in order to ensure the absolute fairness of the competition, International Table Tennis Federation had this avoidance principle. There is only one core content: if two players from the same association are grouped together during the lottery selection ceremony of an event, then according to this principle, the player number of one of the players will be moved downwards in order to ensure that players from the same association try not to meet before the finals.
This is naturally done to prevent players from the same association from killing each other, and to make relatives happy and enemies happy.
However, with the blessing of this principle, Huaping has won the championship and runner-up in various events for a long time, and often reaches the finals, and it is already a civil war. So International Table Tennis Federation, at a certain meeting, tried not to even show his face, gave up the principle of absolute fairness, and canceled the "principle of avoidance of players from the same association."
Of course, they have still appropriately relaxed their principles for the players at the top. For example, in this Olympic Games, at least the top two players in the world are determined to be separated into the upper and lower halves, and the next top ten players in the world will also try to be assigned to different communities to ensure that they do not meet prematurely.
This leads to the fact that the No. 1 Luo Jiu and the No. 2 Wang Chao will never meet before the finals.
The No. 1 Luo Jiu and the No. 4 Sun Tianlong will never meet before the semi-finals.
Similarly, Hook, as the world's No. 3 player, will never meet Wang Chao before the semifinals.
As for Lin Zijun, who is ranked 6th in the world, he will definitely not encounter a player ranked higher than him before the top 8, but when the 8th enters the 4th, if Wang Chao and Hook have not accidentally capsized, then Lin Zijun will definitely encounter one of them.
Having explained this, let's briefly talk about which players were accidentally injured during these three days of competition.
The most typical one is Sissifield.
Sissifield is ranked 15th in the world. This ranking is high enough, so the first two rounds were uneventful. However, in the third round, he lost the protection of the rules and met Bayer, a player from the same association.
If you meet Wolf, Sissifield can actually beat him. After all, he now specializes in left-handed violence, and he has found a unique path. Because he is too violent, even if his flaws are obvious, everyone knows how to beat him, but when it comes to fighting, few people can really catch his flaws.
But the opponent is Bayer, who is getting more and more sophisticated as he gets older. He is the master-level player Bayer who has the best touch in the world, the most delicate ball on the table, and is ranked in the top five in terms of ball control ability.
So Sissifield was beaten to death by Bayer. The whole game was extremely frustrating and the violent left hand couldn't be used at all. Bayer suppressed his forehand from Pressing from the head to the end, just like Wang Chao pressing Sun Tianlong, the ball's landing points are all concentrated near the bottom line of the forehand position. The goal is clear, the stance is firm, and there is never a slight deviation.
In the end, Sissifield, the top player who is fully qualified to enter the top 16, drank in the top 32.
The other two who died miserably were the Peacock Country's first brother Gananaka and the Beautiful Country's first brother Kazik.
Both of them are just on the verge of being ranked among the top 30 in the world. However, due to the limited registration quota, if they were only ranked among the contestants this time, they would actually be ranked around 16th. They are typical fringe figures. Because of this, they are full of confidence and plan to make a good run.
As a result, in the round of 32 to 16, Gananaka met Lin Zijun, Kazik met Wang Chao, and they lost 0:4. They lost without even the slightest desire to struggle, and they were flat from the first game.
In addition, Belarus, the evergreen national treasure player Ochomirov, is too old after all. This time he was also upset, but the one who defeated him was not a strong player, but a Greek veteran ranked more than 80th.
The last thing that must be mentioned is the current Swedish brother k. Michel, who is ranked 10th in the world. He lost to Sakura Country's first brother, Zhang Benkuang, who just turned 17 years old under circumstances that no one expected.
Michel is the only player among the top 16 who has entered the top 10 in the world rankings, and is also the only world-recognized super-class player.
His defeat set off a huge storm in the table tennis world. Everyone was not surprised by his unexpected miss, but by Zhang Benkuang's crazy outburst, because from the scene, Michel really had no problem playing in this game. He lost because Zhang Benkuang played so well.
This teenager, who is still underage, is originally from Western Sichuan Province, China. He moved to Sakura Country with his father when he was young, changed his nationality and became a naturalized player of Sakura Country. He was hailed as a supernova when he debuted, but he suffered various losses in the following year. The ball was almost lost to everyone. Sakura Country even reported that Zhang Benkuang was experiencing a career crisis. Even in China, many fans ridiculed him for forgetting his ancestors and treating his thieves as his father. They expressed that he "deserves himself" for his experience.
As for his unique talent and "prestige", it upset many people on the court and almost ruined his popularity with passers-by.
But Zhang Benkuang did not really fall. He started to explode after a short period of silence. At the end of this year, he missed out on Dubai Platinum leg to win the championship at the end of October. Then today, in front of fans all over the world, he powerfully defeated Michel, who had high hopes for Old Wa, who had completed technical transformation, and who is now the well-deserved number one brother of Sweden, Michel.
If it is possible that the victory in Dubai was due to the fact that there were no tigers in the mountains, then today's battle really showed his majesty and momentum, and fans all over the world suddenly figured out a reason: why Zhang Benkuang keeps losing, But the Sakura Country Table Tennis Association always gives him various opportunities to participate in various competitions. Even Olympic Games allows him to take part in both Men's Singles and Men's Doubles?
In fact, if Ichikawa Mima and Niuwa Xiaoxi hadn't lost to Ichikawa Mima and Niuwa Xiaoxi in the mixed doubles qualifiers, Zhang Benkuang would have had the chance to play three games.
This is because the Sakura Country Table Tennis Association has always been optimistic about Zhang Benkuang and has never wavered in the slightest.
This 17-year-old boy has a bright future. As he grows older, his strength continues to grow. From this moment on, he has truly entered the ranks of the world's top players.
On the evening of December 15th, the top 16 Men's Singles list was officially released. Except for a few unpopular players, all the well-known masters were included in the list, including: Luo Jiu, Wang Chao, Sun Tianlong, Hook, Lin Zijun, Bayer, Zhang Benkuang, Pike, Zhu Shixian, Arul, Wolf, Morad, and so on.
But that night, when they were supposed to be practicing before the game, Luo Jiu left Olympic Village.
In this regard, everyone said that they were already used to it.
In fact, from the first day Olympic Village moved in, Luo Jiu often ran out. Of course, he did not violate discipline, because he asked He Jingping for leave every time, and He Jingping agreed without exception.
But there are differences: what he had to prepare for before was the Men's Doubles competition. Luo Jiu only went out during non-training time, but did not dare to take up training time because he could not delay his partner Sun Tianlong. This is the most basic professional ethics.
But now only Men's Singles is left. To put it bluntly, Men's Singles is his own business, so Luo Jiu becomes even more unscrupulous. For the past three days, he has disappeared after dinner every day and will not come back until the early morning of the next day.
As the head coach, Cai Guodong naturally knew about this kind of thing. He didn't say anything for the first three days. On the one hand, it was because He Jingping was Luo Jiu's teacher and he didn't want to overtake him. On the other hand, it was also because Luo Jiu played only small fish and shrimps in the first three rounds. No matter how he played, he always won, and it was difficult to be upset.
But in tomorrow's 16-to-8 match, Luo Jiu's opponent is no ordinary person. It is Morad, the only remaining member of the Swedish Table Tennis Association.
Considering that the Swedish brother Michel has been upset, Swedish Table Tennis Association must have become a real mourner at this time. This promising and talented blond boy Morad is very likely to explode with unimaginable fighting power tomorrow.
What's more, there is undeniable news that Swedish legend Old Wa has come to Mexico City with the team at the invitation of head coach Persson, moved in with Olympic Village, and became a temporary national team coach of the Swedish Table Tennis Association.
Don't forget, Morad was originally discovered and guided by Old Wa. Even his strange polygonal racket was designed for him by Old Wa himself.
Then what Morad will type tomorrow may be scarier than everyone imagined.
Under such circumstances, Luo Jiu showed a lack of freedom and underestimated the enemy, which made Old Cai a little intolerable. He went to visit He Jingping in person at night and asked, "Luo Jiu, can you do it tomorrow?"
He Jingping nodded. "Okay."
Cai Guodong waited for a long time, but did not see He Jingping continue talking, so he had to continue to ask, "Tell me how to do it. He doesn't train at all every day. I don't know what to do."
He Jingping suddenly showed a somewhat embarrassed expression and said, "Well... I don't know, I've never gone out with him."
Cai Guodong was choked by him for a long time, and then said, "Then you still think he is good?"
"Of course he can." He Jingping said matter-of-factly, "Although I don't know how he has been training recently, I can see that Xiaojiu really wants to win. A player can't hide his desire to win, let alone he has never hidden it in front of me."
Cai Guodong blinked.
He Jingping also blinked.
The atmosphere in the gymnasium was a little strange for a while, except for the monotonous ping-pong sound of Wang Chao practicing ball not far away.
After a long time, Cai Guodong said, "Old He, is this how you usually teach your disciples?"
He Jingping turned his head and glanced at Wang Chao who was sweating profusely from practicing. He turned back and nodded firmly. "Yes."
These two words came out with a vague and deliberately nonchalant expression, as if Old Cai didn't understand that Old Cai was asking for accountability. Instead, he pretended to be a comparison on the spot, which made Cai Guodong's blood pressure rise by several millimeters of mercury.
Cai Guodong is also a well-educated person. When He Jingping hit him, he not only didn't get angry, but started to think. After a long time, he patted He Jingping on the shoulder and said seriously, "Old He, I know that the way to teach disciples is different from the rest of us, and I don't know whether it's good or bad for you to do this, so I won't point fingers... In short, you have to keep an eye on Luo Jiu. If he makes a mistake, I will blame you."
When it came to the last sentence, the tone became stern after all. It was obvious that the head coach was still very unhappy at the moment, and he was just relying on self-restraint to hold on.
He Jingping nodded steadily, not knowing whether he really didn't understand or pretended not to understand. He sent the head coach out calmly, and then his face that was still expressionless fell down, and he greeted, "Stop, stop, Wang Chao, come here, oh, I'm still very panicked. Why don't we talk about your senior brother again?"
Thanks to "Ayayo" for the reward.