Ping Pong Life

Chapter 224 Luxurious Spectator Group

This time, the Hong Kong Open is probably the world-class competition that Wang Chao participated in with the most people, the most players, the most masters, and the most countries after he traveled to this world. There are more than 200 contestants in total.

If you add coaches, sparring partners, team doctors and all kinds of accompanying staff, there are more than 1000 people in total.

These people filled a total of three star-rated hotels before they could all be accommodated.

Therefore, there will be 32 people entering the main match in this competition. These 32 people will be divided into eight groups, with four people in each group. Among them, the top 15 in the current world ranking will directly enter the main match, and the 16th place will be selected by the host Hong Kong Table Tennis Association. , As for the remaining 16 places, they have to start from the qualifying round.

This also means that among the more than 200 players, except for 16, all others will enter the qualifying round and compete for the remaining 16 places.

Considering that there will be a large number of well-known players from various countries in the qualifying round, it will be extremely difficult to advance to the main round.

For example, Wang Chao is considered by many people to be the candidate to win the championship, but he has to start from the qualifying round, so those who meet him can only be considered unlucky.

The big screen in front lights up at the right time, clearly displaying the current world rankings in front of everyone.

1. Huaguo, Sun Tianlong

2. Hua Guo, Xiao Fei
3, Hua Guo, Lin Li

4. Brazil, Hook Calderano

5, Germany, Hans Bayer

6. Hua Guo, Luo Jiu
7, Huaguo, Baifeng

8, Sakura Country, Water Bird Hawk

9. Port District, Weng Chunting

10. Ochumelov, Belarus
11, Sweden, K. Michel 31 years old

12, England, Pique

13, Kimchi Country Joo Se-hyun
14 , Hua Guo, Yan Ping'an
15, Kimchi Country Li Zhengzhi
16. Hua Guo, Fang Xiaobo

17, Bay Island, Lin Zijun
18, Germany, Dimitri Wolff

19, Sakura Country, Zhang Benkang

20. Deutschland, Heathfield Patrick
21. Hua Guo, Zou Zhengyu

……

There are many changes in this ranking compared with last July.

First of all, because Luo Jiu defeated Sun Tianlong in the second half of last year and the finals at the end of the year, winning two gold medals, his points soared, rushing from ninth to sixth.

Then Piqué and Hook also rushed from No. 16 to No. 12, and the other from No. 5 to No. 4 because of their outstanding performance at the last Oman Open last year and the points they gained in the year-end finals.

Finally, Lin Zijun, relying on the points from the semi-finals of the T2 Invitational Tournament and the final semi-finals at the end of the year, went from 20th to 17th. Considering that 10 Huaping players among the top 3 players did not sign up, Lin Zijun successfully entered the 15th National People's Congress The roster, there is no need to play the qualifying round, you can take a day off and wait for the main match.

As for Wang Chao, although he won the T2 championship, but because the T2 championship points are less than the Open Championship, and he only has this round of points, he is still in the [-]th or [-]th place, and there is still a long way to go if he wants to climb up He has to go to the qualifying round first.

In short, looking at this ranking map, the list of eight seeded players and the corresponding divisions have been determined.

District 1/8: Xiao Fei
Zone 2/8: Bayer

Zone 3/8: Waterfowl Hawk

District 4/8: K. Michel

District 5/8: Ochumelov

District 6/8: Weng Chunting

District 7/8: Hook
District 8/8: Lin Li
值得一提的是，这八名种子选手并不是按照排名顺序分别进入1至8区，而是按照1、8、7、2、3、6、5、4的顺序蛇形排序，这样的话，才能保证上半区和下半区实力均衡，而不至于形成明显上半区强于下半区的不公平局面。

Rules such as these grouping sorts will not be described in detail in the future.

As soon as these eight players are confirmed, the remaining eight contestants will come out. They are:
Kimchi country contestants Zhu Shixian and Li Zhengzhi.

Hua Guo players Yan Pingan and Fang Xiaobo.

German player Wolff.

England's Pique.

Bay Island player Lin Zijun.

Hong Kong player He Junjie.

The first seven are all old acquaintances. As for the last one, He Junjie, who was selected by Hong Kong as the host to directly enter the main match, he can be regarded as the No. [-] member of the men's team in Hong Kong, and also Weng Chunting's regular partner in the men's doubles.

Today's lottery ceremony is actually to put the remaining eight people evenly into the eight divisions, but they are not placed in the second position of the area, but in the fourth position, so that each group can be guaranteed The two highest-ranked players in it met at the end, avoiding too many strong encounters and premature elimination in the game.

Ten minutes later, the lottery ended, and many people laughed lowly below.

This signing can be described as extremely wonderful.

Yan Pingan entered District 1, Fang Xiaobo entered District 8, and Huaping currently has only four players. It was such a coincidence that they directly formed two civil wars that made the world table tennis gloat.

Pique's entry into District 7, where Hooker is located, means that the two new powers that emerged in Europe last year will no longer be able to fight side by side, and there will be a life-and-death fight in the group stage.

Lin Zijun has entered the 2nd district, and will compete with Uncle Bai, the king of Europe, to qualify for the group stage. Considering that Uncle Bai had made an appointment with Wang Chao and Lin Zijun through video remote in T2 last year, so this time, Uncle Bai got his wish up.

But Uncle Bai probably wanted to cry, because he really just talked about it last year, and he didn't want to meet such a strong opponent too early at all.

In addition, Zhu Shixian entered the 3rd district of the water bird eagle, Li Zhengzhi entered the 4th district of K. Michelle, Kimchi Kingdom, both of them were unlucky, basically they both met their nemesis.

He Junjie entered the 6th district. As the only player escorted by the host, he was considered the weakest, but by chance, he bumped into his leading brother Weng Chunting. Although it was a civil war, neither He Junjie nor Weng Chunting They were all satisfied, according to He Junjie: "Anyway, I don't want to win, so I'll walk you to Brother Weng to qualify."

In the end, Wolfe entered the 5th district and met Ochumelov. It was a battle between the four veterans of Europe and the five veterans of Europe. It depends on the final result of who will be old and who will be able to eat or not. up.

So far, the 16 players before the main match have been grouped. Starting tomorrow morning, the brutal qualifying match with up to 200 players will be played on a total of 32 tables at the same time. Four wins in seven games need to be selected from more than 200 players within one day. With 16 players, in a sense, the qualifying match will be a more bloody place than the main match, because according to the experience over the years, in every qualifying match, countless famous national players will fall into the sand and be ranked outside the [-]th place. The shocking defeat of the unknown pawns, and the lessons of blood have proved how accidental the table tennis is.

The grouping of the qualifiers is not so serious. What is important is a simple and rough one. In a short period of time, a total of 217 players were divided into 32 groups, of which 25 groups were 7-member groups, and 7 groups were Groups of 6, these groups will have a whole day of single looping in the group tomorrow, and in the end only one person can appear in each group.

Afterwards, the 32 players who qualify from these 32 groups will also undergo an equally simple one-on-one elimination according to the upper and lower halves determined during the initial grouping to determine the list of 16 players who can advance to the main match.

It can be said that in today's lottery ceremony, although the lottery of the 16 main contestants was broadcast live, what most viewers really want to see is the list of qualifying groups.

Because in such a situation where there is a huge gap in level, in many cases, just looking at the list of players in the group, you can probably know who can qualify.

The audience was waiting to see those masters face off against each other, and they couldn't make it out of the qualifying round.

Wang Chao was assigned to the 13th group. He took a quick glance and his face was a little dark.

He discovered Zou Zhengyu's name in this group.

Zou Zhengyu is ranked 21st in the world and the second main player of the national team. He is definitely a player who is qualified to enter the main match, but when he meets himself, he may stop here.

Fans from various countries are really excited about this, because the civil war of Chinese players will always be a carnival for fans of foreign associations.

"It's really cool, let them be more awesome than let them be crazy, now I have to go back one."-Probably similar to this kind of mentality.

Wang Chao looked at the other groups again, and found that everyone's luck seemed to be generally bad this time.

Gao Mingyuan and Lu Feiyang entered the 21st group together. They fought once on the day of the provincial team selection, and now they have to fight again. In any case, it is another civil war in China.

The foreign fans are probably laughing like crazy. In less than half an hour of drawing lots and grouping, five Chinese civil wars have been decided.

The irascible little brother Morad from Sweden with a polygonal racket met Sun Zhongwen, a player from the second Chinese table tennis team. It will also be a tragic fight.

This Sun Zhongwen was the one who eliminated Hu Buming in the provincial team selection a few days ago.

Zhang Benkuang of Sakura Country and Germany's No. [-] character Sissfeld Patrick were assigned to a group.

This group is regarded as the biggest favorite in the foreign association game, because the two people are ranked 19 and 20 in the world respectively, and they happened to be on the line and did not enter the 15-man roster of the main match. At this moment, they met directly. qualify.

In addition, the other groups naturally have their own highlights, with their own winning and losing relationships and past grievances, which have aroused various emotions such as amazement, regret, and cheers from players from different countries, but this is not what Wang Chao wants. cared about.

Silent all night.

From the next day, the Minato Open was in full swing.

Wang Chao entered the stadium with He Jingping early in the morning. When he arrived at table 13, he found that he was the last one to arrive. The other six players had already taken their positions and were exchanging warm-up exercises.

He looked at the auditorium behind him again and was startled.

Well, the auditorium facing the No. 13 table is densely packed with people, which is obviously fuller than most other auditoriums facing the table. In the first three rows, he took a casual look and found a large crowd. pile of acquaintances.

Xiao Fei, Lin Li, Yan Ping'an, Fang Xiaobo, the four Huaping main players sat in a row, waiting to watch his match.

And two seats to the right, Lin Zijun sat, still looking like a good baby, but this time he was not accompanied by Zhuang Huishen, but Jiang Peirong, the head coach of Bay Island.

Wang Chao couldn't help laughing.

He heard a joke at the end of the year, saying that the Imperial City New City team wanted Lin Zijun to train in the team for a month before the Chinese New Year to get acquainted with the players, play and cooperate, exchange feelings, and at the same time familiarize themselves with the environment , but Lin Zijun refused, the reason is very strange: I stay alone, and I don’t know the place where I live, so I don’t feel safe here.

The Imperial Metropolis Xincheng team took this very seriously and asked if they could bring Lin Zijun's parents to the Imperial Capital to celebrate the New Year.

Lin Zijun refused again, because he joined the Bay Island Table Tennis Association since he was very young, so he was not comfortable with the head coach when he was with his parents.

So the Imperial Capital New City team made a direct phone call to the headquarters of the Bay Island Table Tennis Association.

After Jiang Peirong received the call, he flew directly from Wandao to the Imperial City, and finally spent the New Year with Lin Zijun at the owner's house of the Imperial Capital New City team.

It can be seen how much Jiang Peirong, the chief rudder of the Bay Island, loves Lin Zijun. You know, just half a year ago, Zhuang Huishen, who is also a Bay Island card player, wanted to borrow a table tennis table from him to practice, but was rejected. He refused on the grounds that "there is no extra table in the base".

But when he came to Lin Zijun's place, let alone the billiard table, he even put down his daily work, and went directly across the ocean to work as a nanny.

It is true that Zhuang Huishen has a bad temper and Lin Zijun has a good personality, but it is rare in the table tennis world to be so partial.

Wang Chao saw Jiang Peirong here today, which means that he has not returned to the Bay Island for the past two months in all likelihood.

And beside Jiang Peirong, there is another acquaintance, who is actually Wang Shou, the former coach of Poseidon Club.

Wang Shou was wearing the same customized sportswear as Lin Zijun's. Obviously, the former Poseidon coach is now the current coach of the Xincheng team.

Speaking of it, Wang Shou is also a strange thing. He created the Poseidon Dynasty with one hand, and then switched jobs. He obviously jumped to a table tennis super club, but he was relegated again. After going around, he still had to play in the table tennis. dynasty.

With Liang Kunpeng and Lin Zijun in the new city of the imperial capital, there is no doubt that it will be a more terrifying existence than the old sea god, who can kill randomly in Pingjia.

However, when he meets Poseidon, will Wang Shou be a little bit hesitant to deal with Poseidon's boss, Zhao Hanqing?
No matter how you say it, Zhao Hanqing is so miserable now, Wang Shou deserves the most credit.

Wang Chao continued to look behind.

There are more acquaintances in the second row, some have met, some have seen on the Internet.

They are: Bayer, Shuiniaoying, Zhu Shixian, Li Zhengzhi, Weng Chunting, He Junjie, Pique.

These people have either been abused by him, or they are very optimistic about him. The two people in the port area are completely cheering for their own people. In short, everyone is here.

What Wang Chao didn't know was that many media were going crazy right now.

They saw almost all the players who directly advanced to the main match in the viewing area of ​​table 13, which made them both excited and confused, not knowing what happened.

Compared with professional players, the media can only be regarded as people in the relevant industry. They are not so keen and can't grasp the key points. They always thought that the favorites of this competition would be the two main players of Pique Hook, Waterfowl Eagle or Huaping. Only then did they realize that this player named Wang Chao who they didn't pay much attention to had quietly become a heavyweight rookie in the table tennis world.

Only He Jingping was a little worried, and asked Wang Chao in a low voice, "Are you nervous?"

Wang Chao smiled and shook his head: "Don't worry."

"Then...how are you going to fight?" When He Jingping asked this question, his face was troubled.

When he gave Wang Chao physical training, he clearly expressed his point of view. He believed that Wang Chao's style of play last year was evil.

But the problem is that Wang Chao's performance has been too good and too smart, so at this moment, Wang Chao is actually determined, but He Jingping himself is wavering.

He was thinking, should Wang Chao hide his clumsiness when he is being studied closely by everyone?

Perhaps it is the best choice to switch to last year's style of play and hide his strength?

He was a little afraid to take the initiative to give advice to Wang Chao, because he was afraid that he might make a mistake.

He paid too much attention to Wang Chao's first match of the new year, but he was worried about gains and losses.

On the contrary, Wang Chao took the initiative and said: "It's okay, I will play normally, and they can watch it if they want."

He Jingping looked up at him.

"Could it be that you think they can beat me if they understand it?" Wang Chao smiled and said, "Don't worry, I didn't mean to comfort you on purpose. I really think that you told me at the Jiangcheng team base this year What he said is very important, and I feel that I am really strong now, and I am not afraid of being studied by them."

There is a saying that he didn't say in his heart: "If I want to win a Grand Slam, the future will always be studied by them like the present."

He Jingping finally felt at ease, and patted Wang Chao on the shoulder: "Come on."

However, it was not Wang Chao's turn in the first game, but two European players he didn't know walked onto the table.

45 minutes later, after the game was over, Wang Chao was on the field, and the opponent was still a nobody.

　Brothers, I deeply realize that the most difficult part to write is often the most boring part. In order to make the match list of this chapter, I really worked for several hours. I usually only wrote four hours for two chapters. I was writing today and looking at the time, it was past eight o'clock, so I quickly broke the chapter and updated it.

　　(Yes, this is the reason why I broke the chapter, it's all the truth)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)