Ping Pong Life

Chapter 421 Ultra-large-scale, complex grouping

The Brazilian journalist Tavares, who had been silent for a long time, started his performance again.

"Please predict who will win the World Table Tennis Championships?"

"Of course it's Sehyun Oppa, the ace player of our big kimchi country."

"But Zhu Shixian's world ranking is about to drop out of the top 20."

"How do you talk? Do you understand Shixian Oppa? Do you think it is easy to be ranked 16? Don't you know that all the top 20 players in the world are separated by a thin line? The outcome depends on the state of performance. Good or bad, and we Shixian Oppa will definitely play the best form so far this time."

……

"Who do you think is the most likely champion of this World Table Tennis Championship?"

"If there is no accident, it should be the pride of our German Ping Pong, great uncle."

"Don't you think Huaping's Luo Jiu has a better chance?"

"What are you talking about? Luo Jiu hadn't made it to the national team when his uncle was a master of table tennis."

"But isn't Luo Jiu's world ranking far above Bayer's?"

"So what's the matter? If the world ranking can determine the outcome, then why do you need to play a game? Budapest is the blessed land of our German table tennis players. Uncle Bai won the gold medal in the World Table Tennis Championships here 20 years ago. Of course he also won the championship this time." to win again.”

……

"Excuse me, who do you think Luo Jiu or Wang Chao has a better chance of winning this World Table Tennis Championship?"

"None of them have a chance, because the champion must belong to our England. Liam Peake is the destined champion of this World Table Tennis Championship."

"I would like to remind you that Pique has not won against Wang Chao and Luo Jiu in all competitions in the past year."

"So what's the matter? The World Table Tennis Championships is a place where miracles can be created. The English Table Tennis Association has carefully calculated scientifically. Pique's chances of winning the championship are as high as 51 percent."

……

"Who do you think will be the men's singles champion at this World Table Tennis Championships?"

"Hook."

……

"Who do you think will be the men's singles champion at this World Table Tennis Championships?"

"Molard."

……

"Who do you think will win the World Table Tennis Championships?"

"Lin Zijun."

……

Tavares gave up after a full hour of interviewing.

As a table tennis reporter who officially transformed this year, he found that fans from all over the world have completely different attitudes towards the Open and the three major competitions.

The fans were rational during the Open, but they were crazy during the three major competitions.

All the fans without exception declared that the ace player of their country would win the final gold medal.

Even if they know in their hearts that the players from their own country have no chance of even one percent, they still have to be stubborn like dead ducks.

This is an attitude.

It is an unconditional support for domestic players.

——Of course, except for those gamblers who buy the market. After all, the odds of Luo Jiu and Wang Chao are astonishingly low, which proves that they are the most rational group of people.

……

The scale of this World Table Tennis Championships has reached an extremely exaggerated level. Regardless of the number of applicants, the number of participating associations, and the actual number of people arriving in Budapest, it is the most this year.

On the evening of September 9, the sponsor ITTF and the Hungarian Table Tennis Association began to officially broadcast the grouping ceremony.

In fact, this is only the first stage of grouping. A few days later, the final grouping for the main match will be held after the qualifying round.

This process is extremely complicated, so I will briefly introduce it here. Those who are interested can take a look, and those who are not interested can skip it.

Firstly, according to the world ranking, the top 64 players will be qualified to directly participate in the race. These players are: Luo Jiu, Hu Ke, Lin Li, Bai Feng, Bayer, Lin Zijun, Wang Chao, K. Michel, Pique, Weng Chunting . Xian Youwen and Jin Feng from Jindalai Country, Portugal's first brother Freitas, Denmark's first brother Gross, Africa's first brother Arul, Sweden's third brother M. Michel, and so on.

This list is easy to determine, because basically all the masters from all over the world have come, just follow the world ranking table and drop down. The absent players in the front of this list are Sun Tianlong, Xiao Fei and Water Niaoying. The first two voluntarily gave up participating in the competition, and the latter one was because they rejected the recruitment of the Sakura National Table Tennis Association last time. Now they dare not contact the Sakura National Table Tennis Association for fear of being slapped in the face, so they did not come.

After confirming the 64 contestants, there are a total of 246 remaining contestants. They come from more than 100 associations. Fans of some associations may have never heard of them. These people rarely play open games. Participating, because the self-funding is very expensive, and there is no bonus, but this time it is the World Table Tennis Championships, organized by the association, and there are public subsidies, so they all came.

This is a bit like the kind of martial arts conference described in martial arts novels. It belongs to the top event in the circle. Regardless of whether you are capable or not, it is always right to go there first to get acquainted. For those who have participated, if this competition happens to be famous, then I have seen it on the spot, and I will be more confident in bragging.

For example, in a country like Nigeria, there is a shortage of table tennis talents, but because there is an African brother, Alur, who is ranked in the top 100 in the world, not only can they participate, but they also have as many as four places.

In a small place like Luxembourg, although the men's team only has three places, the women's team also has four places because of Grandma Ni Lilian.

In short, the situation is very complicated, the famous and the unknown are all here.

And those associations that everyone is familiar with, all five places are full, such as Sakura Country, the one we are more familiar with is Zhang Benkuang, and later because of the mixed doubles, I also met a person named Niwa Xiaoxi, but this time there are actually three people. , although it is unknown in the international arena, but the fame in the Sakura domestic competition is not much smaller than that of Zhang Benkuang. One is Uta Seiya, the other is Hoshikawa Ruiji, and the other is Komatsu Kota. The five people in Sakura Country, except Except for Zhang Benkuang, the other four had to play in the qualifying round.

In short, the 246 qualifying players will eventually select 64 people, and the previously determined 64 people will form a total of 128 people for the main competition.

So how to choose these 64 people?

According to the actual number of applicants, the relevant staff of the ITTF will give the most scientific group elimination method after calculation.

The final schedule is as follows: First, divide these people into 80 groups from front to back according to the world rankings, including 74 three-person groups and six four-person groups. group first.

Then, the No.48 of the top 1 groups directly advances to the main match.

The No.32 of the last 1 groups will draw lots again temporarily, and fight against each other. The 16 winners will advance to the main match.

So far, all the 64 qualifying players who have advanced to the main match have been released.

After getting the complete roster of 128 players, the organizer will draw lots for the second time, and this time, all the matches will be arranged in order.

This process is also very complicated, roughly like this:
First, identify the upper and lower halves.

Each half area is then divided into two, thus forming four 1/4 areas.

The four 1/4 zones are then divided into two to form eight 1/8 zones.

The eight 1/8 districts continue to be divided into two to form sixteen 1/16 districts.

These sixteen 1/16 districts have eight players assigned to each district.

In the first three rounds of the race, eight contestants from each 1/16 district will draw lots to fight against each other. All of them are knockout rounds with four wins in seven rounds. 8 advances to 4, 4 advances to 2, and 2 advances to 1. The qualifying players in the /1 district are determined, which is equivalent to the determination of the top 16.

接下来，每个1/16区里的出线选手，将要跟他所在的1/8半区里的对手打一场，赢的进入下一个1/4半区。

By analogy, until the finalists of the upper half and the lower half are finally determined, these are the two sides of the final.

Who will enter which zone is determined by the rules and lottery at the same time.

The No. 1 seed sits at the top of the entire top half.

The No. 2 seed is at the bottom of the entire bottom half.

The No. 3 and No. 4 seeds are drawn to determine who is at the bottom of the top half and who is at the top of the bottom half.

5到8号种子抽签决定谁在1/4区的顶部，谁在1/4区的底部。

9到16号种子抽签决定谁在1/8区的底部，谁在1/8区的顶部。

17到32号种子抽签决定谁在1/16区的顶部，谁在1/16区的底部。

So far, the positions of the top 32 players have been distributed to all positions in the 16 districts as perfectly and evenly as possible, while the remaining players are freely allocated through drawing lots.

Such a rule allows the strongest players to delay their encounter as much as possible, and also prevents the finals from becoming a battle of disparity between strength and weakness.

The qualifying round started on September 9th. Due to the large number of people, the qualifying round lasted for three full days. In the end, 28 main contestants were announced, and there were basically no surprises.

Well, there are actually many accidents. For example, a rookie player from Luxembourg lost to a rookie player from the Peacock Country who was more than 100 lower in the world ranking than him, and a rookie player from Portugal defeated him. Kota Komatsu, a player from the Sakura country ranked more than 70 in the world, and a brother from a small unknown country performed abnormally because of diarrhea, and lost to an underage player from an unknown African country. In fact, this underage player is completely Come meet the world.

It can only be said that although there are many surprises, in the eyes of the masters, they are all pecking at each other.

Does an elephant care who is stronger between two fighting ants?

will not.

Does the elephant think it's an upset because the skinny ant beats the stronger one?

Neither will it.

So the qualifiers were full of chaos, but basically no one paid attention to it, because everyone knew that the 64 main contestants who had been killed from the qualifiers were completely cannon fodder and came up to fill the scene.

It wasn't until the second round of lottery grouping ceremony that everyone became a little more serious, because everyone was staring at the names at the top of the world rankings, wanting to see who would meet whom in advance.

At this time, because Luo Jiu had just won the Portuguese Open championship, his total points had surpassed Hu Ke who was ahead of him, and rushed to the second place in the world, so he was the No. 1 seed, numbered 128.Hook, as the second seed, is numbered [-], and they will definitely not meet before the final.

The next No. 3 and No. 4 seeds are Bai Feng and Lin Li. They need to draw lots to decide who is in the upper half and who is in the lower half.

Luo Jiu and Hu Ke didn't care much about this, and the fans also didn't care much, because they didn't think that these two main Chinese table tennis players still had the ability to win the championship in this era.

But for the next first round of lottery, everyone is very concerned about it.

Because the four people in this round are Bayer, Lin Zijun, Wang Chao and K. Michel.

Luo Jiu himself was in the upper half. He regarded Wang Chao as his lifelong enemy. He didn't want to see Wang Chao before the finals. He hoped that Wang Chao would go to the lower half.

Hu Ke didn't have the same empathy as Luo Jiu, but if he had to choose two of these four people to meet first, he naturally hoped to meet Bayer and Michelle.

However, in the end, Luo Jiu's obsession was stronger, which moved the god of luck in the dark, and Wang Chao was assigned to the lower half.

The biggest suspense of the lottery ceremony came to an abrupt end.

As for Pique, Weng Chunting, Morad, Fan Xiaodong and others behind them, are they strong?Obviously very strong.But can it win?Obviously most fans think it can't be done.

The World Table Tennis Championships is a grand event where the strong are like clouds. The strong lose and the stronger win. Even Bai Feng and Lin Li, the main Chinese table tennis players who have been brilliant for seven whole years, are ignored by everyone. What about Fan Xiaodong, who is younger and has a not-so-good record in the civil war?

So after the two-hour group drawing ceremony ended, all players got a day and a half to rest.

But Wang Chao's rest time is only half a day this afternoon.

Because starting tomorrow morning, the mixed doubles match will be played before the men's singles match. The opponents of him and Tang Yuanyuan are a pair of fish belly combination from the host country of Hungary.

In fact, there are a total of 112 pairs of mixed doubles registration pairs in this World Table Tennis Championships, but the rules are much simpler than men’s singles. Will hit at the beginning.

Therefore, Wang Chao did not hurry up to practice, but locked himself in the room, quietly watched the video, and quietly analyzed all his next opponents.

During this period, He Jingping went to Wang Chao's room three times. Every time he went in, he saw Luo Jiu's game video on the screen in front of Wang Chao.

He also went to Luo Jiu's room twice, and every time he went in, he saw Wang Chao's game video.

So He Jingping, who originally wanted to say something, was completely silent.

He has deep feelings for these two disciples, but the two feelings are actually quite different.

He is more indebted to Luo Jiu, because Luo Jiu has been with him for seven years, and after Luo Jiu finally achieved great success by changing the glue, he poured most of his efforts into his little disciple Wang Chao body.

So this year Luo Jiu has been flying alone almost all the time.

And he is more grateful to Wang Chao, because it was Wang Chao who saved his career that was on the verge of despair, and helped him save Luo Jiu and Zhu Ding. It can be said that without Wang Chao, his Life has been bleak up to now, and the guilt he once felt towards Luo Jiu and the apology he felt towards Zhu Ding could not be repaid in this lifetime.

The palms and backs of his hands were full of flesh, and he really didn't know who he should hope to win.

From the point of view of human relations, Luo Jiu is already 27 years old. Fan Xiaoxian has been waiting for him for seven years. He can't afford to lose. He should win this gold medal. In this case, even if he can't beat Sun Tianlong in the end, he won't get the Olympic gold medal , he can at least use this gold medal in the World Table Tennis Championships to go to Lao Fan's family to propose marriage.

But should Wang Chao lose?
Just because he is young, has a future, and can wait, should he lose?
There is no such reason.

Even in terms of causality, it was Wang Chao who saved Luo Jiu, so Luo Jiu should give up the gold medal as a reward to Wang Chao.

Many days ago, Wang Chao joked with him, saying that this was "brothers fight against each other, a tragedy in the world", and he just took it as a joke.

But when the two disciples really valued each other so much and faced each other so unavoidably, He Jingping found that he was indeed a Pisces with difficulty in choosing...

(Today’s condition is super bad, only one chapter, let me take it easy, that, I’m very embarrassed to speak up, but let’s ask for a ticket, this monthly ticket is so rare.)

　Thanks to "Hai Ziyuan" for the reward of 500 coins.

　　Thanks to "Book Friends 20220316195115018" and "New Boyfriend, please pay attention to check" for the reward of 100 coins.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)