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as soon as the wtt china grand slam started, miwa harimoto failed the "naked test", which was an upset on the day. on september 29, in the first round of women's singles held at the center stage of the baji stadium in shougang park, beijing, the popular japanese player miwa harimoto was defeated by the wild card player of the chinese team 9-11, 2-11, 2-11. he zhuojia, china's strongest foreign association opponent in women's table tennis, was eliminated in the first round.

judging from the world rankings alone, in the absence of hina hayata, miwa harimoto, who is ranked seventh in the world, is already japan's number one women's singles. she was defeated by he zhuojia, who is only ranked 71st in the world. it seems to be a safe match. unpopular. starting from the second game of this game, miwa harimoto had little power to fight back. in the third game, she fell into a "death start" of 0-8. it can be seen with the naked eye that he zhuojia's strong performance close to the stage exerted a strong sense of pressure on the 16-year-old japanese player. she pursed her lips and shook her head helplessly. after the game, miwa harimoto, who came to the coach's side, finally couldn't help sobbing. she did not accept a post-game interview and left the field. in the last wtt macau championship, zhang benmeihe eliminated chen xingtong in the semi-finals; and at the macau world cup in april this year, zhang benmeihe defeated wang yidi, which was also her first victory against a major chinese female table tennis player. as a rising star, this unexpected loss obviously hit her hard.

he zhuojia is not weak

however, this unpopularity in the eyes of the outside world is actually not surprising. he zhuojia, who will turn 26 in one month, is not weak. she entered the second national team at the age of 15 and the first team at the age of 19. she has long been known as sun yingsha's senior sparring partner. he zhuojia was a backhand raw rubber player in his early years. later, in order to serve as a sparring partner for the whole team, he imitated fukuhara ai and switched to long rubber. this change allowed he zhuojia's skills to blend the characteristics of the two styles of play. as a sparring partner who specializes in imitating japanese opponents, there are few people in the country who are more familiar with japanese female table tennis players than she is. last year, he zhuojia also joined the japanese t-league and played for the strong team kinoshita kanagawa club. miwa harimoto, miu hirano, miyu kihara, miyu nagasaki and other japanese players are his teammates.

"i feel like i still have more to play. i want to play more games on this venue. from the moment i entered the stadium today, i haven't had this feeling of rapid heartbeat for a long time!" he zhuojia has had a lot of contact with zhang benmeihe in the t-league. he zhuojia couldn't hide her excitement at being able to win their first international meeting. she also made a special trip to thank her teammates for their help, adding collective wisdom to this victory. "the chinese table tennis team is a collective, so i was well prepared. i trained with chen xingtong before the game, and sun yingsha played against zhang benmei and gave me some advice.”

in addition to the star-studded main players, the chinese table tennis team actually has many second-line players like he zhuojia. because they are ranked low in the world, they can usually only "earn points" through low-level wtt events such as feeder matches, regular challenges, and star challenges, and do not get much attention. as the highest level event in the wtt series, the rules of the grand slam give second-tier players a chance to break through. compared with other high-level wtt events such as the finals and championships, the grand slam not only has more players in the main draw (64 men's and women's singles each, 24 pairs in each of the three doubles), but also has a qualifying channel, and the men's and women's singles qualifications there are 64 people participating in each competition, and the top eight in both categories qualify for the main competition.

at the same time, the "benefits" of the host country are very generous. not only does it have multiple wild cards in the main draw, but it can also send more people to participate in the qualifying stage. this is the first time that china has held a wtt grand slam. the national table tennis team has made full use of the advantages of the rules and used the game as a "training ground" for second-tier players, giving them the opportunity to gain more points and attention. this time, the national table tennis team not only fully utilized the organizer’s wild cards (four wild cards for each of the five events), but also sent as many as seven men’s singles players and eight women’s singles players to participate in the qualifying rounds.

qualifier fan siqi upset wang yidi

in the first round of the singles main draw, several "dark horses" from the qualifying round were upset - 26-year-old fan siqi was ranked only 82nd in the world. she upset the world's fourth-placed wang yidi 3-2 and was ranked 100th in the world. the 25-year-old female player liu weishan narrowly defeated the 18th-ranked national table tennis player qian tianyi, and the 23-year-old girl wang xiaotong, ranked 96th in the world, eliminated the 22nd-ranked south korean player zhu qianxi 3-1. the 25-year-old xue fei also broke out of the men's singles qualifying round and swept canadian player li yuanzhang, who was ranked higher in the world, to advance to the top 32 of the men's singles. in the talented chinese table tennis team, fan siqi, liu weishan, and wang xiaotong often serve as sparring partners for the main players of the national table tennis women's team, while xue fei is one of fan zhendong's long-term sparring partners.

whether they are top players or second-tier players, the strength of national table tennis players cannot be measured simply by world rankings. the addition of players from the second tier of national table tennis has added more uncertainty to china's grand slam events. just like the ambitious tomokazu harimoto, he did not dare to speak nonsense. before the game, he once said frankly that "if you can't meet the chinese team in the first three rounds, it will be a good draw."

(this newspaper’s special cable from beijing on september 29)

author: wu shu

text: our reporter/wu shu picture: tournament editor: gu miao editor-in-chief: shen lei

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