The Qatar Open was held in Doha this week. This is the first Platinum event of the International Table Tennis Federation this year, and it is also the Outpost Battle of the budpace World Table Tennis Championships in April. The national championship is in full swing, with Ma Long, Xu Xin, Ding Ning, liu Shiwen, four Olympic champions, led a group of young main forces such as Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Manqi. In the first round of mixed doubles last night, Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen eliminated the German combination franzska/Solga with a ratio of 3 to 0, and easily broke into the top 8.
In the lineup of the national championship in Qatar Open, the most concerned is the men’s “Grand Slam” Malone who withdrew from at least five competitions due to injury in the past six months. Malone signed up for men’s singles and man pair this time. In the first round of the man pair competition yesterday, he and his partner Lin Gaoyuan easily advanced 3-1. In addition to participating in the women’s singles as the defending champion, Guangzhou Olympic champion Liu Shiwen also participated in mixed doubles with Xu Xin. This is the third open since the two were paired. Their opponents include South Korea, Hong Kong China team, japan’s world table tennis team. For those who aim to reach the top in Budapest next month, this is also a great opportunity to find out the strength of their opponents.