Without doubt, Chinese paddlers Ma Long and Ding Ning grabbed the spotlight in 2015, taking almost every major trophies that they could. First and second in ITTF rankings respectively, they became top seeds of the men's and women's singles events at the Rio Olympic Games.
Olympic gold medal is the only thing that they lack to complete their respective Grand Slam. Can they make it here?
In 2006, Ma claimed his first world champion with the Chinese team at the World Championship in Bremen. Ten years later, with the World Championship and World Cup singles titles in hand, he was striving to realize his Grand Slam dream.
What Ma impressed people the most was his consistency throughout the game. Using right handed attaching shakehand, he got three major titles, namely World Championship, World Cup and World Tour Grand Finals.
However, Ma's road to glory in Rio seems not smooth. After reaching into last 16, Ma will book a possible encounter with South Korea's Jung Young Sik, before probably facing the winner between Timo Boll and Chuang Chih-Yuan. If Ma's journey goes on, he will face Japan's top male paddler Jun Mizutani in the semifinals.
"I hope to finish with a gold medal for China," Ma said before heading to Brazil.
Even though he did experience many up-and-downs in the past two years, Zhang Jike, who realized the Grand Slam in London four years ago, is still regarded as the biggest threat to Ma. Moreover, Zhang is looking to complete his second Grand Slam in Rio, just shy of an Olympic gold medal.
Zhang also faces an uphill battle to the unprecedented glory in table tennis. He is likely to kick off his campaign facing Chen Chien-An of Chinese Taipei, who he lost to in the first round of ITTF World Tour Korea Open in June. In the quarterfinals, he may face No. 16 seed Stefan Fegerl of Austria, another opponent he lost to in the past two years. Third-seeded Dimitrij Ovtcharov awaits Zhang on the other end of the half.
For women's singles, Ding will meet much less resistence before the semifinals, with Kasumi Ishikawa likely to be the final hurdle to cross into the final.
Ding is looking forward to an all-Chinese final encounter with defending champion Li Xiaoxia again after London, as two players from the same association are automatically drawn into different halves. Li also expected a relatively smooth road before the semifinals, where she may face No. 2 seed Feng Tianwei of Singapore. Feng is also tested by Japan's Ai Fukuhara before meeting Li.
70 male players and 70 female players will participate in the singles events in Rio. Players ranked 1-16 will qualify directly to the third round, those ranked 17-32 to the second round, and those ranked 33 to the total number of participants will qualify to the first or preliminary rounds.
16 teams will compete in the team events. Chinese men's team has to beat 2012 Olympic runners-up South Korea in order to enter the finals, with Japan being drawn into bottom half together with the 2008 Olympic silver medalists Germany.
On women's part, defending champions China should expect a more fierce matchup in early rounds as they will have to take on DPR Korea in order to make the semifinals, with another major opponent Singapore probably waiting there, and London Olympic runners-up Japan, led by Kasumi Ishikawa and Ai Fukuhara, as the final opponent.
Table tennis competition of the Rio Olympics will run from Aug. 6-17. China is targeting at sweeping all four golds as what they did in London.
