Chinese table tennis players have won both titles and runner-ups at the ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup that just ended in Weihai, east China's Shandong Province. In men's competition, Fan Zhendong became the first one who won the World Cup three times in a row. In women's competition, Chen Meng pocketed her first title of three major international table tennis events – World Cup, World Championship and Olympics.

Liu Guoliang, president of the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA) and head of the World Table Tennis (WTT), watched every game of Chinese players. He realized that Chen still had a problem dealing with choppers though she had already invested extra efforts in this area during practice. It took Chen seven difficult games to defeat Germany's Han Ying in the semifinal match. Liu believes that Chen still has a lot of room to improve herself.

China's 20-year-old genius Sun Yingsha lost to Chen in the final match, but Sun beat Japan's Mima Ito, one of the major challengers to China in table tennis in recent years, in the semifinal. Though she did not win the title, Sun underwent the test of the World Cup, according to Liu. Her victory over Ito and Kasumi Ishikawa made Sun the representative figure of the new Chinese national table tennis team's new generation.

Fan beat his compatriot Ma Long in the men's final to win the title. "After the World Cup last year, he (Fan) has made remarkable progress improving his skills, which meant he's on the right path of training and practice during the pandemic," said Liu. "You could see that he's grown more reliable in the match and his skills were more complete than before. Defeating Ma Long in the final meant a lot to him."

Though Ma lost in the final, he eliminated another formidable opponent of China, Japan's Tomokazu Harimoto, in the semifinal match. "The semifinal against Harimoto was harder than we had expected. But Ma Long managed to reverse the desperate 3-1 trailing by making full use of his experience, willpower, wisdom, and match reading. It was a textbook comeback victory," said Liu.

Chen, Sun, Ma and Fan will be joined by their teammates Xu Xin, Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Manyu, and Wang Yidi in the coming ITTF Finals in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, between November 19 and 22. Meanwhile, they will again meet Ishikawa, Ito, and Harimoto again in the contest.

Having watched Harimoto's match, Liu believes that the 17-year-old grew better in every way, especially in the fundamentals. "But the match against Ma Long exposed his (Harimoto's) mood swings. He's very talented, and it's great to have an opponent like him."

Liu also spoke highly of Ito. "She's better than most players in the world and almost equally-matched with ours. She will inspire everyone in our national team, especially the young ones. I hope more Chinese players will have the chance to play against Ito so they can learn from each other."

Lin and Fan are in the same half as Harimoto in men's competition, and Lin may meet Harimoto first if he beats Koki Niwa first. Ma and Xu are in the other half. In the women's contest, Chen and Sun are not in the same half as Ito. Instead, Wang Yidi and Wang Manyu will have the chance to meet Ito first.