After the Paris Olympics, the Chinese table tennis team’s new Olympic men’s singles champion and Smash winner Fan Zhendong was interviewed by CCTV, and then said this to reporters:
‘In fact, everyone says I’m a super Smash now, but in fact I’ve taken all the runner-ups in all the competitions, and I’ve always felt that those runner-ups are wealth.’
Objectively speaking, the above is by no means Fan Zhendong’s modest words, because looking back at history, we will find that the Chinese table tennis team in the realisation of the Smash before really have put together a ‘Smash’, and not only the world’s three major competitions (the Olympic Games, the World Table tennis tournament, the World Cup) singles programme many times to take silver, there are many other competitions are also no exception, the following let us list them all. Let’s take stock!
Olympic Games: 2021 men’s singles final against Ma Long was runner-up, 2024 bitter sweet finally topped.
The 2021 Tokyo Olympics was Fan Zhendong’s first time to participate in the tournament, at the time he was only 24 years old, although he was in the ascendant period of his career, but after all, there is still some inexperience, facing the 32-year-old defending champion veteran Ma Long played not ideal, and finally lost 2-4.
2024 Paris Olympics Fan Zhendong more pressure, teammate Wang Chuqin cold out of the game after their own near collapse, men’s singles quarter-finals in the big score 0-2, 2-3 behind the situation 4-3 tough reversal of Japan’s Harimoto Tomokazu, and later the final and 0-1 behind, 4-1 reversal of Sweden’s Mooregaard (eliminated Wang Chuqin’s people), and thus the bitter end of the bitter end of the sweet end, to achieve the Smash feat.
World Series: 2017 men’s singles final was second to Ma Long, and 2021 and 2023 had the last laugh.
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Fan Zhendong has been competing in the World Series since he was 16 years old, but has been defeated by his teammates in four consecutive men’s singles tournaments (losing to Zhang Jike in 2013, Ma Long in 2015, Ma Long again in 2017, and Liang Jingkun in 2019), with the 2017 World Series in Dusseldorf being the men’s singles final defeat, when Fan lost 3-4 in a major scoreline, and 10-12 in a deciding game, to Ma Long. Very unfortunate.
Until 2021 Fan Zhendong finally ushered in a new life, in the Houston World Series even won the master to win the men’s singles gold medal, when the final opponent is this year’s Paris Olympics and their own title competition Moregard. 2023 Durban World Series, Fan Zhendong successfully defended the title, and thus all of the World Series men’s singles title in the Paris Olympic cycle.
World Cup: 2015 men’s singles final came second to Ma Long, before taking four titles in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Fan Zhendong participated in the World Cup singles for the first time in 2015, and the result was a 0-4 defeat in the final against Ma Long to be the runner-up, but since then he has been smooth sailing in this tournament, winning the 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 championships, of which the men’s singles final in 2020 was a 4-3 defeat of Ma Long topped the list, but in 2024, he lost his teammate Lin Gaoyuan without the chance to win the five championships.
The above is the review of Fan Zhendong’s record in the singles events of the three major competitions of the ping world, we can see that he got a total of seven titles, but also had three runner-ups, both ‘Smash’ winners, but also ‘Smash’ athletes. As mentioned before, Fan Zhendong has won a lot of titles and runners-up in other competitions.
Other tournaments: Asian Games, Asian Championships, Asian Cup, National Games singles have won and silver experience.
In addition to the world’s three major competitions, Fan Zhendong had also defeated Xu Xin in the men’s singles final of the 2014 Asian Games, and later won the gold medal in 2018, but lost to Wang Chuqin in the final of 2023; the men’s singles final of the 2023 Asian Championships was not defeated by Ma Long, but previously took the title of 2015 and 2017; the men’s singles final of the Asian Cup in 2014 and 2015 was not defeated by Ma Long and Xu Xin, and 2018, 2019 topped as the king; 2013, 2017 National Games men’s singles final are lost to Ma Long, 2021 first time to win the title.
At present, Fan Zhendong in the Chinese and foreign eight competitions only the All-Championships did not have the experience of winning the singles runner-up, but also had lost to other athletes before the final, which shows that his career has indeed experienced very many setbacks, but in the good news, all of these setbacks have eventually become his motivation to move forward, and ultimately allowed himself to fill in the final piece of blankness on the list of singles winners of competitions in Paris, which is indeed not easy!
