by sportswriters Su Bin and Xie Jiang
DURBAN, South Africa, May 18 (Xinhua) — With two days till the beginning of the 2023 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships (WTTC) Finals in Durban, pleasure is boiling over in South Africa for the celebrated occasion, held in Africa for the primary time since 1939.
For China, it is no secret that its star gamers goal to brush all out there titles at any main desk tennis event, however who could stand of their approach this time?
Mattias Falck and Kristian Karlsson did so on the 2021 World Championships in Houston, the United States, because the Swedish pair dispatched two Chinese pairs, Fan Zhendong/Wang Chuqin and Liang Jingkun/Lin Gaoyuan, on their method to the boys’s doubles crown, the one title to not fall to China within the final two editions of the event.
Two years later, China’s desk tennis workforce stay upbeat about their marketing campaign in Durban. “Our goal remains the same: to try to win gold in every event,” stated chief coach Li Sun when the event roster was introduced in early April.
Featuring each veterans and new blood of their squad, the workforce just isn’t solely concentrating on the current, but in addition has one eye on the long run.
Ma Long, 34, will play in his eighth World Championships, with the legendary paddler profitable all three titles between 2015 and 2019. The reigning Olympic champion will contend for glory with males’s world No. 1 Fan Zhendong and rising star Wang Chuqin, together with their teammates Liang Jingkun and Lin Gaoyuan.
Like their males’s counterparts, China’s feminine paddlers competing within the singles occasion are additionally the identical as those that helped China win their fifth straight title on the World Team Table Tennis Championships final 12 months in southwest China’s Chengdu.
Bidding for her first world singles championship, top-ranked Sun Yingsha expects a tricky problem from her compatriots Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Wang Yidi and Chen Xingtong.
Chinese paddlers have demonstrated their dominance within the girls’s singles occasion in current World Table Tennis (WTT) Series occasions, as they swept the ultimate 4 spots at each the Champions Xinxiang and the Champions Macao.
Recovering from accidents, Olympic gold medalist Chen Meng and reigning world champion Wang Manyu obtained again to profitable methods on the WTT Champions Macao, the place Wang emerged because the eventual winner.
Wang Yidi and Chen Xingtong additionally emerged victorious in WTT occasions this 12 months, as Wang took the Star Contender Goa title, whereas Chen grew to become a triple crown champion within the girls’s singles, girls’s doubles and combined doubles on the Star Contender Bangkok.
As high 5 feminine paddlers on the planet rankings, the Chinese quintet will goal glory on the worlds.
In the doubles class, China’s roster options new faces like youngsters Lin Shidong and Kuai Man.
Sitting seventh within the combined doubles world rankings, the post-2000s duo is the highest-ranked Chinese pair after world No. 1 Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, claiming 5 straight WTT titles in a fruitful 2023. Their choice is deemed as a maneuver of the teaching group eyeing the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“In terms of their ages and playing style, they can compliment each other quite well,” defined Xiao Zhan, head of China’s combined doubles teaching group.
Arriving in Durban on May 12, China grew to become the primary workforce to land on the competitors web site in preparation for the occasion, and began their last preparations on May 13.
Familiar faces stay in the way in which for the Chinese paddlers. Fourth-placed Japanese prodigy Tomokazu Harimoto shall be among the many male paddlers to look at, and final version’s finalist Truls Moregard of Sweden and Brazilian ace Hugo Calderano are different standouts considered.
China’s distinguished figures also needs to watch out for freak occurrences, like Fan’s gorgeous loss to French teenager Alexis Lebrun in WTT Champions Macao quarterfinals.
On the ladies’s facet, Japanese duo Mima Ito and Hina Hayata would be the largest threats to China, though Ito fared under par in Japan’s current trial for the 2024 Olympics, failing to achieve the quarterfinals of that event. Besides them, Germany’s veteran chopper Han Ying and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei may additionally trigger a stir for Chinese individuals down the stretch.
After touchdown Sweden’s first males’s doubles world champion in three many years, Falck and Karlsson goal to repeat their success in Durban. Houston Worlds finalists Jang Woo-jin and Lim Jong-hoon of South Korea may even try to achieve the identical stage, whereas France’s Lebrun brothers are anticipated to show their skills as nicely.
Ito and Hayata would be the largest impediment for China within the girls’s doubles, whereas Li Yu-Jhun and Cheng I-Ching of Chinese Taipei may depart their mark on the sport.
For China’s combined doubles pairs, their predominant challengers are Hayata and Harimoto and French duo Yuan Jianan and Emmanuel Lebesson.
Liu Guoliang, president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA), stated he expects the ITTF WTTC Finals to be a fierce competitors as all elite paddlers will take part.
“It will be a comprehensive test of our strength in 2023, so as to lay a solid foundation in our Paris Olympics preparation,” he advised Xinhua.
84 years after its final internet hosting of the worldwide desk tennis showpiece, Africa is buzzing with anticipation forward of the Durban Worlds, with high gamers trying ahead to showcasing their abilities in entrance of enthusiastic crowds.
“This is a great thing for Africa. It’s an opportunity to showcase to the world what Africa has to offer, from our hospitality to our culture and, of course, our top-level table tennis action,” stated Omar Assar of Egypt after claiming the boys’s singles title on the ITTF Africa Cup.
His opponent within the last, Quadri Aruna of Nigeria, additionally expressed his hope to encourage and assist the following technology of gamers via the World Championships.
“It’s significant that the World Championships are being held here in Africa. It’s a platform to show Africans the thrill of the sport, to inspire young players, and to get more fans. This is a positive step forward towards having more people loving the sport and wanting to be part of it,” stated Aruna, the world’s highest-ranked African participant, at No. 12.
The Durban worlds will bear witness to Ni Xialian’s legendary story, because the 59-year-old will signify Luxembourg in three classes on the biennial competitors, which can happen on the Durban International Convention Center from May 20 to twenty-eight.