Recently, the table tennis world has been stirred up by a major event. The actions of Olympic champions Fan Zhendong and Chen Meng, who jointly withdrew from the world rankings, have caused a huge stir, with the focus squarely on WTT's overbearing clauses. This incident has drawn public attention to the management mechanisms of WTT.
Amidst this controversy, Liu Guoliang's stance appears quite subtle. As the head of WTT World Table Tennis, he has not mentioned his own position in the face of numerous doubts, and this silence has greatly affected his reputation. At this time, Ma Long's situation is even more special. Ma Long is already at the end of his career, and the increase in age poses many challenges to his competitive state. More importantly, he has a close relationship with Liu Guoliang, and it is rumored that they also have private collaborations, which makes it inconvenient for him to publicly express his stance on this matter. "The friendship between gentlemen is as pure as water," perhaps this friendship allows their interactions to follow more the tacit understanding and respect within their hearts.
However, when asked during an interview who he most wanted to challenge, Ma Long blurted out the three words "Liu Guoliang," which was undoubtedly a bombshell. Both Liu Guoliang and Ma Long are grand slam winners in the table tennis world, but they represent different eras. Liu Guoliang is the first male grand slam winner in the history of the national table tennis team, and he had a unique playing style in his era. In his career, he once took advantage of the tactic of blocking serves to gain an upper hand in competitions. With the modification of international table tennis rules, this tactic is no longer allowed, and Liu Guoliang retired early to transform. After all, times are changing, society is progressing, and people's concepts are also changing. Liu Guoliang adapted to the changes of the times and transformed into the current table tennis federation leader.
Ma Long, on the other hand, has shown a completely different athletic trajectory. He achieved success late in life, relying on his tenacious will and solid basic skills to continuously write legends in his long career. Even at the relatively high age of 36 for athletes, facing physical pain in world-class competitions (such as cervical spine pain that made him unable to move during the World Cup final), he still relied on his rich experience in major competitions to achieve a comeback victory from a desperate situation of being 0-3 behind. In the Paris Olympics team event, he did not lose a single match, helping the Chinese team win the championship trophy. In the China Grand Slam, he fought to the decisive game with young talent Lin Shidong in the finals, showcasing his strong competitiveness through the trials of time.
Looking back at their past experiences, we can also find a special bond between them. At the 2019 World Table Tennis Championships, Ma Long left a vivid mark on the battlefield where he competed with Falk for the championship. Falk used a special playing style with forehand positive rubber, which was extremely rare among male players at the time. Fortunately, Liu Guoliang, who came from a positive rubber playing background, served as Ma Long's sparring partner with his rich experience. The two simulated the final scene on the court, helping Ma Long better adapt to his opponent's playing style through this method. This incident not only reflected the unity and cooperation within the table tennis team but also highlighted the power of experience transmission.
It is worth mentioning that the return of former world No. 1 female table tennis player Zhu Yuling has also brought new topics to the table tennis world. She deeply felt the rapid development of table tennis technology in recent years after returning at the WTT Doha Star Challenge. She described the current table tennis playing style as "almost like playing tennis, with almost no defense." This reflects the huge changes happening to table tennis technology in the international environment. Zhang Jike's insights further sparked people's thinking about the development of table tennis technology. He believes that "national table tennis technology has not been innovated for 20 years," using Wang Hao's twisting and pulling technique as an example, which has developed somewhat since the 2004 Olympics but lacks fundamental innovation.
In this era full of change, the table tennis project faces many opportunities and challenges. How to innovate technology while maintaining traditional advantages? How to coordinate the relationship between athletes and event management? How to inherit and carry forward the spirit of table tennis under different historical backgrounds? These are questions that the table tennis world needs to deeply consider. Whether it is the formulation and adjustment of event rules under the leadership of Liu Guoliang in WTT World Table Tennis or the continuous exploration of new playing techniques by athletes on the competitive field, they are related to the future direction of table tennis. The hypothetical cross-era confrontation between Ma Long and Liu Guoliang is not just a personal competitive exchange, but more like a dialogue between two different stages in the development of table tennis, carrying the inheritance and innovation of technology, the integration and collision of concepts, which is worth our common expectation.
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