the decider was reversed and malone missed his first grand slam men's singles title: "i can leave this venue with a smile."
2024-10-06
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competitive sports regardless of age. after the wtt china grand slam men's singles final, the host specially set up an interview ceremony for runner-up ma long. "i did not fail in this game," malone said emotionally in front of the enthusiastic fans. "for me in my 20s, my dream is to stand as a winner in every game. but now , i can still reach the finals, which is beyond my imagination.”
at the baji stadium in beijing shougang park on the 6th, the men's singles final was a duel between veteran ma long and rising star lin shidong. in this game with a 16-year age difference, malone unfortunately lost to his young teammate 3-4. the scores in the seven games were 4-11, 11-7, 11-5, 15-13, 4-11, 5-11, 8 than 11. malone showed his tenacious fighting spirit and strong desire to win in the fourth game. falling behind, malone chased after him, and the two sides struggled from 7-7 to 13-13. at the critical moment, malone scored two more points to win the game. when malone led by a big score of 3 to 1, everyone thought that the balance of victory had tilted towards him. at this time, "little stone" actually won three games in a row. especially in the thrilling final game, malone once led by 4 points, but lin shidong was unable to win all the way. the score was tied at 8-8, and then scored three consecutive points to win the game.
regarding this "old and young showdown", perhaps the last thing malone wants to talk about is age. previously, he expressed his understanding of competitive sports: "in fact, there is no one who is older or younger in competitive sports. what is more important is your ability, which is more important than age. you can be like that. he won the olympic championship when he was young (14 years old), and he can still be the best basketball player in the world like james (39 years old). i think the more important thing is to see who has the strength, not the age that the outside world says. size."
as the only "double grand slam" (winner of the olympics, world championships, world cup and other championships twice) in men's table tennis and a veteran of four olympic games, malone, who has been in the national team for 21 years, is regarded by many fans as a table tennis player. the only goat in the world. talking about his goat, malone said: "federer and nadal are from the same era. james in basketball, messi, cristiano ronaldo, and modric in football. i can see from them that they are very interested in this sport." the ultimate love of sports. sometimes people’s expectations for them are not because of how many goals he must score, but because they like his hard work on the court. i think that is a very important reason why everyone likes them.”
malone not only has the hard work and self-discipline of a top player on the court, but also has the hard work and self-discipline of a top player off the court. "the reason why ma long is able to play to this level is that he has extremely high requirements for his own self-discipline." deng yaping, who served as the commentator, revealed a short story about malone to the audience: one weekend after the paris olympics, all the team members they all had a rest, but ma long was the only one who went to the gym to train. he also joked with the visiting sister yaping: "i'm going to play a grand slam soon, so don't lose too ugly."
in fact, ma long won the china grand slam so beautifully that he only lost one game in the first five rounds. in the first round, he swept the french star pichefort. in the second round, he eliminated zeng beixun, a young player from the beijing team who was 14 years younger than him, 3-1. in the third round, he swept the korean veteran lee sang-soo, who had upset him and defeated him 3-1 in the quarter-finals. he swept the highest-ranked foreign association player hugo with 0, and then swept liang jingkun 4-0 to advance to the finals. only in the final was he defeated his teammate lin shidong 3-4.
malone had no regrets about missing out on his first wtt grand slam men's singles championship. at the end of the on-site interview, he said: "at this moment i can leave this venue with a smile."
author: wu shu
text: our reporter/wu shu picture: visual china editor: gu miao editor: shen lei
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