On January 17th, the national table tennis team officially announced the Asian Cup entry list. For the collective absence of three Olympic champions Ma Long, Fan Zhendong, and Chen Meng, Wang Hao dared not respond to such a sensitive topic, but Ma Lin showed great sincerity and responsibility.
Ma Lin clearly responded that the reason why Chen Meng did not participate in this Asian Cup is mainly two points: first, Chen Meng has withdrawn from the world ranking system; secondly, the team communicated with her, and she will not participate in international competitions for the time being. It can be seen that Ma Lin still communicated with her after knowing that Chen Meng withdrew from the world rankings, and thus got the response that Chen Meng would not participate in the competition, which can be considered as benevolent and righteous, and everything that should be done has been done. Compared with Wang Hao's reluctance to respond to sensitive issues in table tennis, Ma Lin, who has always had a bad reputation, appeared very honest this time, which also changed the outside world's view of him.
However, objectively speaking, Chen Meng's problem and Fan Zhendong's incident are not comparable because Chen Meng's age and state are no longer advantageous. Her withdrawal from international events during the world ranking incident is also a good choice. After all, if Chen Meng insists on competing with Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu for the Grand Slam, it is very likely that she will lose badly. Although Chen Meng is only one step away from the Grand Slam dream, now if she can withdraw, it is also the best face-saving option.
In addition, in the women's team entry list, there is no mention of Qian Tianyi, the "long-legged team flower"! She was also trained as a key player in the previous Olympic cycle, but her progress was not significant, and many problems were exposed in foreign matches. Moreover, Qian Tianyi was frequently photographed dating with her boyfriend from the national badminton team, which touched the traditional taboo of the national table tennis team. Of course, the most critical thing about her is that her performance is not good enough, and the rest is just a waste of time.
As for the selection of Kuai Man and Shi Xunyao, Ma Lin also affirmed the two, saying that they are key players cultivated by the team in the new cycle. The reasons for their selection are mainly two: firstly, judging from the equipment and recent performance against several major Japanese opponents, they are worthy of affirmation; secondly, these two are also the most outstanding among the young players.
Although Qian Tianyi is more famous than these two, according to Ma Lin's evaluation, she can only be considered the third most outstanding among the young generation. Now, even though Chen Meng has voluntarily given up a spot, Qian Tianyi is still unable to make the six-person list, indicating that her room for advancement is not great.
