Guoping needs attention! Malone had a lingering fear, calling it lucky to win, and praised the 19-year-old dark horse for its great progress. In the WTT Macau Championship in 2023, Wang Chuqin and Malone successively defeated their opponents in the semi-finals, successfully joined the men’s singles finals, and Guoping locked the championship and runner-up. After the game, Malone was full of praise for French 19-year-old Alex in an interview, calling himself lucky.
In the men’s singles semi-final, Wang Chuqin took the lead in playing against Japan’s core Zhang Benzhihe. Originally, everyone thought that the game would be fierce, but the actual situation was that Wang Chuqin easily defeated Zhang Benzhihe 4-0 and took the lead in advancing to the final.
Then Malone, the winner of the Grand Slam of Table Tennis, came out at the finale and played against Alex, a 19-year-old French teenager. This was their first match. Alex beat top seed Fan Zhendong in the previous match, so this match attracted a lot of attention. After the start of the game, Malone took the lead in 4-1, but then Alex tied 5-5, but Malone quickly stabilized the situation and won the first game with 11-8. In the second game, the competition between the two men in the first half was still fierce. When the score was 7-7, Malone made a mistake, and Alex scored 4 points and pulled back the game with 11-7. Alex led by 8-4, then Malone fired all the way, scored 7 points in a row, and won the game by 11-8. In the fifth game, Malone finished the reversal in the backward situation, and finally sealed the victory by 11-8, thus winning by 4-1.
After the game, Malone summed up the game in an interview. Malone’s first remark was that he was a little scared. Later, Malone said that Alex had made great progress in the past two years and his world ranking had also improved greatly. This was the first time to play against him, and I felt particularly great pressure, especially in the last two games, which were very difficult to win and finally won by luck. From Malone’s statement, it is not difficult to see that he was surprised by Alex’s performance. Perhaps he didn’t think that Alex could play like this before the game. Fortunately, Malone had rich experience in the competition and withstood the impact of Alex. Before Fan Zhendong was out of the game, he was probably not prepared. I hope the table tennis coaching staff can pay attention to Alex. In addition, Malone also talked about the final against Wang Chuqin. Malone said that he lost to Wang Chuqin several times last year, and this time he hoped that he could prepare in the best state.
关于作者