The prestige of Chinese table tennis, which once boasted being the world's strongest, has fallen to the ground.
At the World Table Tennis Championships team event currently being held in London, the way people look at China is markedly different from the past. China, which once meant that participation itself signified victory, is being judged at this tournament as the "weakest of the 21st century." The current national team centered on ace Wang Chuqin no longer shows the overwhelming stability of the past.
The problem is not simply a failed generational change. A general decline in performance has repeatedly appeared across multiple tournaments. Recently, the gap with Japan at international competitions has noticeably narrowed. There have been more matches lost after close contests. They no longer overwhelm opponents, and a pattern of being "unstable even when winning" continues.
Liu Guoliang, vice president of the International Table Tennis Federation, who once led the national team, inspected the team ahead of this tournament to steady the atmosphere. In particular, he has been offering various pieces of advice to Wang Chuqin, whom he nurtured with care, to help him find his center.
Legends such as Ma Long and Xu Xin have been brought into training to help the younger players, but the younger players' skills have been slow to improve.
Given these circumstances, the massive support for Chinese table tennis has also been cut off. Wang Chuqin complained about London's high prices, saying, "I can't even properly buy a bottle of water in London. With the money to buy a few boxes of bottled water in China, I can only buy one bottle here."
This is an indirect criticism that support for the Chinese national table tennis team is not what it used to be. In the past, Chinese table tennis players caused controversy by betting tens of thousands of dollars on overseas soccer matches. Players who once had that much money have now become a pitiful national team that feels embarrassed to buy even a bottle of water in London.
[OSEN]