CTTA made its final decisions regarding the men's team and women's team for 2018 Asian Games to be held in Jakarta from 26 August to 1 September. The lineup does not include all the big names who competed at the 2018 World Team Championships this April but a few promising young stars who will be competing at their first Asian Games.
For the men, Fan Zhendong, the only member of the 2014 Asian Games champion-winning team, will lead Lin Gaoyuan, Liang Jingkun, Xue Fei and Wang Chuqin to make their Asian Games debut.
In Halmstad, Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Chuqin pretty much proved themselves by winning every match they played in Halmstad and won team gold at the 2018 World Team Championships. Despite showing some nerves in Halmstad, they will be looking for better performance and playing a crucial role in carrying the team in Jakarta this August. Both players will be competing in multiple events, three for Lin Gaoyuan and two for Wang Chuqin.
Liang Jingkun was a fraction away from making the 2018 World Championships Team as he ended up third in the Chinese trials which the top two finishers (Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Chuqin) would take the remaining spots on the World Team. In fact, Liang Jingkun stood out at a young age. He was part of the 2015 World Championships lineup and ended at the round of 32 in the men's singles losing to his compatriot Zhang Jike. He has also shown great potentials at the past CTTSL, especially in 2016 CTTSL where he helped the team with no big names to settle for second in the league. However, his international achievements are not quite comparable to his domestic ones. Would the 2018 Asian Games a breakthrough for him?
Xue Fei, the only penholder on the team, is exciting to watch. He might not have a glamorous resume for his achievements in international senior events. He did a fantastic job at last year's Junior World Championships winning 4 gold medals (team, singles, doubles and mixed doubles). The other person who has accomplished a clean sweep is his compatriot Fang Bo. However, having this much depth on the team, he has to battle out for chances to play in the team event.
Despite the young and inexperienced team, head coach of the men's team, Liu Guozheng looks forward to seeing the team united as one and deliver some great performance, winning the champions, at the Games.
For the women, Zhu Yuling and Chen Meng, both members of the 2014 Asian Games champion-winning team, will join forces with Wang Manyu, Chen Xingtong and Sun Yingsha, to defend team gold at Jakarta. Note that, Chen Meng and Wang Manyu will compete in the women's singles while Zhu Yuling, who is slightly more experienced than the others, will sit out the singles event.
Delegations are taking mixed doubles more seriously since the event was introduced to the 2020 Olympics. The Chinese have tried out several mixed doubles combinations at the recent ITTF World Tour and Wang Manyu is always among the mixed doubles lineup. Likewise, Wang Manyu is once again assigned to compete in the mixed doubles at the Asian Games partnering Lin Gaoyuan. Whereas the other pair of mixed doubles is a collaboration between Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin, both of them will be competing at the upcoming 2018 Youth Olympic to be held this October.
Member of the 2018 Team World Cup champion team, Chen Xingtong will compete in the team event only.
Head coach of the Chinese women's team, Li Sun has confidence in the 5 athletes as he believes they can put up strong performances at the Games. He also mentioned that the coaches would like to see how would young athletes react to pressure situations when the team is not anchored by experienced players. He said a young lineup will bring pressure to Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen and vibrancy to the team.
According to CTTA, the selection of the Asian Games team is based on the 2018 CTTA ranking, 2017-2018 international results, 2017 Junior World Championships results and the 2018 Youth Olympic qualifications.
Find below is the lineup for the 2018 Asian Games.
Men's Team: Fan Zhendong, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin, Liang Jingkun, Xue Fei
Women's Team: Zhu Yuling, Chen Meng, Wang Manyu, Chen Xingtong and Sun Yingsha
Men's Singles: Fan Zhendong and Lin Gaoyuan
Women's Singles: Chen Meng and Wang Manyu
Mixed Doubles: Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Manyu, Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha
Sources: Table Tennis World and CTTA
Table tennis competitions at the 2018 Asian Games consists of 5 events, namely, men's team, women's team, men's singles women's singles and mixed doubles touched down at Jakarta, Indonesia, from 26 August to 1 September (subject to change). For more details about table tennis at the 2018 Asian Games click here.
Check the lineups of other teams:
China
India
Japan
Chinese Taipei
Hong Kong
Korea
Singapore
I understand this blog has not been updated as frequent as it used to be because I am getting busier with my school work. Even though I could not make frequent or regular postings as I used to do, I will try my best to translate news and make updates whenever I am free. At this moment, I can promise that I will keep an eye on the 2018 Chinese Nationals (to be held in September) and 2018 CTTSL (schedule to be announced) and write about these 2 tournaments so that the community will receive updates about table tennis news in China. I will also work on my World Championships recap (which has been sitting in the draft for weeks) and a post-WTTC interview translation (a 90 minutes program!!!). I hope you could understand the plight of a final-year student who is currently drenched in piles of paper. Please do check the blog from time to time and leave comments! I still love the sport and would follow it like many of you who are reading this post. Thank you!
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