Chapter 81

The domestic and international epidemic situation was growing increasingly severe. For the sake of the players' health and to minimize time spent staying in multiple international locations, the Chinese National Table Tennis Team collectively skipped the Hungarian Open in February, choosing to concentrate their efforts on participating in the Qatar Open in March, and decided that the main delegation would arrive at the destination early for closed-door training. As a newly rising core player of the women's team, Shasha naturally secured a spot near the front of the entry list, and she would compete in both women's singles and women's doubles. Meanwhile, Wang Datou earned his place on the roster thanks to his commendable performance as a sparring partner and a third-place finish in overall points during the internal trials; this would also be his comeback match following his suspension. In men's doubles, because the Tokyo Olympics required testing out lineups, Ma Long and Xu Xin were once again paired up. As for the other men's doubles pairing, the coaching staff arranged for Wang Chuqin, who had been showing a fierce momentum recently, hoping his drive could, to some extent, help Fan Zhendong—whose form had been unstable and whose mentality had grown weak during the current cycle.