The Chinese National Games and the Olympics do not lend themselves to an easy comparison, but Olympic champion Ma Long is facing a rough road to defending his table tennis national title.

As the reigning men's singles champion at the National Games, which opens on Sunday, Ma is at his technical and mental peak after beating London Olympics gold medalist Zhang Jike in the final at Rio. 

However, the 29-year-old is not at his physical best at the moment. Ma's coach Zhang Lei confirmed last week that injuries are troubling Ma, who is competing on behalf of the Beijing delegation. 

"The old injuries to his hip joint and wrist are getting worse," said Zhang. "The wound reoccurred in his training last week and he had to take cortisone injections and take some time off of training for recovery." 

A busy schedule will also add to Ma's injuries as the world No. 1 will play in three events (singles, doubles and team) in the National Games. 

"If he goes deep in each event, he has to play two to three matches each day and face stiff challenges physically," added Zhang.  

Ma will be up against capable opponents in the National Games, as most of the world's top ranked players are from China.  

The World No. 2 and World Championship runner-up Fan Zhendong, 20, is Ma's archival in the National Games. In the last edition of the National Games, Ma and Fan competed against each other in the final match, with Ma taking the title. 

Two-time Olympic runner-up Wang Hao, coach of the Chinese national team, believes the National Games will be rough not just for Ma, but for all the leading players. 

"Ma is a master in skill and experience, so he was able to beat Fan in the World Championship final in a seven-set showdown, but that defeat is helping Fan to build up his own experience in handling big events and key moments. That's just what Fan needs the most in order to start his era of dominance in the sport," said Wang, who is coaching Fan as he represents the PLA delegation.  

In addition, Xu Xin and Zhang Jike, both ranked in the world's top 5, will compete at the National Games. "Chinese players know each other so well both in terms of skill and temperament, so it makes the job easier to find a way to defeat the star players," added Wang.  

Chinese veteran coach Zhou Shusen, 76, who has been active in the sport for 59 years and is coaching the Shandong delegation in the Games, thinks the same.  

"You don't need to play so many Chinese players on the way to win in the Olympics, as only two players from each country are allowed to compete in the Olympics, but here you have to play a couple of Chinese on the way to the crown," said Zhou, who steered Singapore's ladies to a historic team title past China in the 2010 World Championship. 

"Each of your opponents is one out of hundreds or thousands, and no one is an easy target," Zhou added.  Ma downplayed the issue of his physical condition on Sunday, but refused to rule it out. "On the whole, I'm feeling all right and not quite worried about injury troubles, but I have to say it's quite tough to play in the National Games and you'll have to play your best in every match in order to avoid early elimination," said Ma.