Chen Meng
China
Table Tennis
Overall Ranks
#3 among Chinese Olympians
#3 among Table Tennis Players
#2 among Female Table Tennis Players
Olympic Results
2020
Singles - Gold
Team - Gold
2024
Singles - Gold
Team - Gold
Total
Events - 4
Gold - 4
Chen Meng was born on January 15, 1994 in Qingdao, China, and made her provincial team at age 9, and the national team when she was 13 in table tennis. She first reached the world #1 ranking in 2018. She finally earned one of the coveted spots on the Chinese Olympic table tennis team in 2020, and she finally made her Olympic debut in 2021, at age 27.
She was the #1 seed in the singles tournament, which meant that she got a bye to the third round. All matches were best of 7, and she started out strong, sweeping the first match, then winning 4-1 in the next. In the quarterfinal against Doo Hoi Kem of Hong Kong, she had a scare as she lost the first two games before rebounding to win 4 straight to move on to the semifinal. She swept her semifinal opponent to move on to the final, against Sun Yingsha, the other Chinese competitor, who was ranked #2 in the world. This match was very close, with Sun winning the 1st and 4th games, before Chen won the next two to end it and take home the gold medal.
In the team event Sun and Chen were joined by Wang Manyu, ranked #4 in the world, so they were the obvious favorites, and they destroyed the competition, winning 36 of 40 total games, and all 12 of their matches, as they swept their way to another gold medal for China in an event that they have never lost.
At the 2023 World Championships, Chen ended up winning the silver medal, with Sun defeating her for the gold. Both were back for the 2024 Olympics, with Sun as the top seed and Chen #2. This time there were no byes for top seeds, so they had to get through all 6 rounds, and Sun got to the final without losing a single game, while Chen lost 2 games early, but still made the final easily. The final went exactly as it had 3 years earlier in Tokyo, with Sun winning the first and 4th games, but Chen coming through by winning 2 in a row at the end to win the gold medal.
The team event featured the same three Chinese players, with Wang ranked #3 by that time, meaning that China had the three best players in the world all competing together. The result was almost exactly the same as in Tokyo as well, with China losing only 5 games out of 41, with 3 of those coming in the final against Japan, but the end result was another gold medal for China.
Chen, like Fan Zhendong (#73), has withdrawn from participation in international table tennis since the Olympics in protest of a new policy penalizing top players for skipping tournaments. She is not retired, and hopes to make the 2028 Olympic team, but it's unclear whether she will be allowed due to her current status. Even if she doesn't compete again, her 4 gold medals in the past 2 Olympics, both of which required a tough win over a top-2 player in the final, have already made her one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
No comments:
Post a Comment