The Chinese table tennis team's training camp in Huangshi is over, and the men's table tennis and women's table tennis teams go to Guangzhou, the venue of this year's ITTF Tour Finals. Guangzhou is located in the south of China, subtropical coast, belongs to the oceanic subtropical monsoon climate, the four seasons of the year like spring. In December, the northern country is already freezing for thousands of miles and snow drifting for thousands of miles, while Guangzhou still has an early spring temperature of 10 to 15 degrees Celsius.

A total of 16 athletes participated in the men's singles competition at this year's ITTF Finals. Ye Hao's game schedule is relatively high, and the opponent in the first round is the 28-year-old Swede Hakansson, who has won the World Table Tennis Championships team championship and the European Championships team championship with the Swedish national team. However, in terms of strength, compared with Ye Hao, the gap is obvious. After more than half an hour of competition, Ye Hao easily swept the opponent and continued his good form. The scores of the four games were 11:8, 11:6, 11:6, and 11:4, and the score can fully reflect how easy it is for Ye Hao to win.

Compared with Ye Hao's easy victory, the performance of the other two cores of Chinese men's table tennis, Ma Lin and Wang Liqin, was a big disappointment. Marin's opponent is also an athlete from Sweden named Renqvist. In this game, Marin's performance was extremely unstable, in the first and second games, his hand feeling was extremely poor, he made too many active mistakes, and gave his opponent many gift packages. 7:11, 5:11, the first two games Marin lost very happily. In the next third game, Marin seemed to have recovered a little bit of his hand, 11:5, and won easily. In the fourth game, Marin lost again, 6:11, and lost without temper. In the fifth game at the critical moment, Marin held on, 13:11, and it was not easy to win. But in the next game, Marin showed his original form again, pulled the ball out, rubbed the ball into the net, how to make a mistake, 6:11, lost another game, lost to Renqvist with a total score of 2:4, and actually fell in the first round, breaking out the first big upset since the start of the game.

Immediately afterwards, Ma Lin's good brother, Wang Liqin did not let his buddy be alone, and he continued to continue his bad state for more than a year. Since winning the singles championship at the last World Table Tennis Championships, Wang Liqin's road has not been smooth, and he has repeatedly lost in the competition, and this time is no exception. However, his game was very fierce and it was a pity to lose. Wang's opponent in the first round was South Korea's Yoo Seungmin, and he launched a fierce attack as soon as the opponent came up. There was some slow heat in this game, and he was caught off guard by Yoo Seungmin in the first two games, 8:11, 6:11, and lost the first two games. However, Wang Liqin's biggest advantage is that his psychological quality is excellent, in the third, fourth and fifth games, he won three games in a row, and the total score was 3:2. But Liu Chengmin is not a soft persimmon, now he has been sharp, relying on high-quality fighting, he actually reversed the game, and defeated Wang Liqin with a total score of 4:3 to advance to the quarterfinals. Ryu Seungmin's outstanding performance at next year's Olympics is not accidental, and he has a certain amount of quality.

By the end of the eight matches in the first round, only two of the six members of the Chinese team were eliminated, and they were the core of the men's team entrusted by Liu Guoliang. In this regard, the major domestic news media have spoken out.

CCTV Sports News reported: "This winter, Guangzhou is so cold! ”

Phoenix News reported: "Table tennis national football has encountered a core crisis, and King Ma has disappointed again."

Groom Sports section: "There is only one last link left in the national table tennis trident, how far can the single-core Ye Hao go?" ”

Sohu Sports Section: "National table tennis has encountered a core crisis, who can become the leader of men's table tennis?" ”

What's more, he said that "Liu Guoliang suffered a crisis of getting out of class, and Cai Ping Pong couldn't really fade out of the rivers and lakes."

The elimination of Ma Lin and Wang Liqin in the first round gave the national table tennis men's team a bad start to the finals, and brought great pressure to head coach Liu Guoliang. Now many people in the outside world are questioning his on-the-spot command skills, criticizing him for being indecisive and the culprit of the defeat in the King of Horses.

In this context, Ye Hao, the only remaining world champion of the men's team, as the strongest of the four Chinese players in the quarterfinals, will definitely take on greater responsibility and ensure that the task of winning the championship falls on his shoulders.

The four matches in the second round are, Ye Hao VS Zhuang Zhiyuan, Liu Chengmin VS Hao Shuai, Wang Hao VS Chen Qi, and Lehnqvist VS Glinka. In addition to the civil war between Wang Hao and Chen Qi, it is ironclad that the Chinese team will be able to secure a place in the top four, and the matches between Ye Hao and Hao Shuai are all foreign wars.

Wang Hao and Chen Qi took the lead in the game, and the result of the game was that Wang Hao had a slight advantage, defeating Ye Hao's Suzhou Province hometown Chen Qi with a total score of 4:1, and was the first to advance to the semifinals. Greece's veteran Glinka against Swedish teenager Lehnqvist had another upset, and the teenager Lehnqvist swept the opponent 4:0 and got a place in the top four, becoming the biggest dark horse in this competition. The match between Yoo Seungmin and Hao Shuai was much more intense than the first two quarter-finals. 11:7, 8:11, 11:9, 11:6, 5:11, 11:7, Liu Chengmin fought hard in six games, and finally eliminated the Chinese teenager Hao Shuai 4:2 and advanced to the semifinals of the third round.

Of the four games, three have passed, and only Ye Hao and Taiwan's Zhuang Zhiyuan have not been played. At this time, among the other three seats in the top four, the Chinese team only occupies one, which is not a big advantage. If Ye Hao loses this match with Zhuang Zhiyuan, then Wang Hao will be alone and face the encirclement and suppression of foreign players. (Taiwan, of course, is Chinese, not a foreign country!) But now it can't be regarded as his own person, after all, even if the Hong Kong team wins the championship, it can't be regarded as the head of the Chinese team. ）

Therefore, Ye Hao's game has received great attention, and the Chinese table tennis men's team also attaches great importance to it. Not only Ye Hao's head coach Xiao Zhan (Liu Guoliang has relieved Ye Hao of his responsibilities as head coach due to his busy work as the head coach of the men's team), but also Liu Guoliang, the head coach of the men's team, and Cai Pingping, the head coach of the outgoing Chinese table tennis team, have personally stepped into the battle to guide. Of course, this has something to do with the fact that Xiao Zhan has just taken over Ye Hao, and the two have not worked together in the competition. All in all, this game can be said to be highly anticipated, winning the game is only the most basic goal for Ye Hao, head coach Liu Guoliang requires him to play at the level, play with style, and win beautifully.

As the only remaining member of the trident of the men's team, as an important component of Liu Guoliang's strategic planning for the Athens Olympic Games, Ye Hao must maintain the dignity of the trident, and can only win, not lose! At the same time, in order to relieve the pressure on Liu Guoliang, the master who was "called out of class", Ye Hao also made up his mind to win the battle, and the victory must be a big victory!

"I'm sorry Zhuang Zhiyuan, you wait to be abused."