Marvellous 12 2019

After the annual pre-WTTC closed-door training camp (happening right now), a mock rumble (dubbed the 'warm-up competition 热身赛') will also be held to assess the progress of the players. This year, the matches will be held between 4th April to 6th April and I believe this will probably determine if there will be any changes to the line-up for Budapest.

Last year for the men, Team A (comprising Ma Long, Xu Xin & Fan Zhendong) was the winner while it was Team B (made up of Liu Shiwen, Chen Meng, Chen Xingtong, Sun Yingsha) which emerged victorious on the women's end. In case you were wondering, the other teams are as follows:

Men

Team B: Lin Gaoyuan, Wang Chuqin, Xue Fei
Team C: Liang Jingkun, Zhou Yu, Xu Chenhao
Team D: Fang Bo, Yan An, Xia Yizheng

Flexible Reserve Players: Ma Te, Zhou Qihao, Zhang Jike, Yu Ziyang

Team A overcame Team D in the semis before continuing their winning streak over Team C in the finals. In the latter, ML 3:1 XCH, XX lost 1:3 to LJK but FZD helped to secure the overall victory by clinching two points (3:2 LJK, 3:1 ZY).

Women

Team A: Ding Ning, Zhu Yuling, Wang Manyu, Gu Yuting
Team C: Sun Mingyang, Hu Limei, Wang Yidi, Liu Gaoyang, Mu Zi
Team D: Chen Ke, Zhang Rui, Liu Fei, Wu Yang, Feng Yalan

Team B took down Team C in the semis and went on to upset Team A in the finals. There, CM overcame DN 3:0, LSW followed suit with a 3:1 win over ZYL while CXT lost to WMY 1:3.

As per the closed-door camp tradition, the CNT always puts up posters of the players who pose the greatest threat to them for the upcoming WTTC in the training hall. Below are this year's:

Third-Tier Male Players

(top left to bottom right) Franziska Patrick, Kristian Karlsson, Mattias Falck, Morizono Masataka, Yoshimura Kazuhiro, Simon Gauzy, Marcos Freitas, Lebesson Emmanuel, Chen Chien-An, Alexander Shibaev, Jonathan Groth



Second-Tier Male Players

(top left to bottom right) Koki Niwa, Jang Woojin, Hugo Calderano, Liam Pitchford, Lee Sangsu, Lin Yun-Ju, Jeong Youngsik, Vladmir Samsonov, Chuang Chih-Yuan, Wong Chun Ting



Top-Tier Male Players

(left to right) Mizutani Jun, Harimoto Tomokazu, Timo Boll, Dimitrij Ovtcharov



Third Tier Female Players – Kim Song I, Li Qian, Li Jie, Suh Hyowon, Sato Hitomi (I omitted Han Ying because she's not even gonna be playing WTTC)

Second Tier Female Players – Feng Tianwei, Cheng I-Ching, Jeon Jihee, Doo Hoi Kem

Top Tier Female Players – Ito Mima, Kasumi Ishikawa, Hirano Miu, Kato Miyu (surprised she is up here with Hirano)

Oops just realised that someone else had posted the above pictures. According to Weibo, some practice matches took place during the closed-door camp as well. Matches that I know of are as follows:

1) Ding Ning/Fan Zhendong 3:0 Fang Bo/Zhu Linfeng
2) Ma Long/Wang Chuqin 1:3 Zhang Yudong/Sun Wen
3) Liu Shiwen 4:2 Xu Yingbin
4) Fan Zhendong 4:2 Lin Gaoyuan
5) Xu Xin/Liu Shiwen 3:1 Zhou Yu/Mu Zi
6) Ma Long/Wang Chuqin 4:2 Zhao Zihao/Cheng Jingqi

One major change implemented this year pertains to pitting female players against male players directly to build up the former's skills more exponentially.

NextLevel said:

Liu Shiwen beat Xu Yingbin. Did I read that right?

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Yup, you read it right

When LSW was interviewed, she talked about how it requires a lot of focus and self-discipline when playing against male players because the shots are of higher calibre (greater speed, spin etc.) which will likely boost training results. She also revealed getting all pumped up hearing the very audible sounds made when the ball and bat make contact during play, again because male players generally hit much harder and faster.

Original text as "男孩的训练气氛更热烈一些，加上这种专注度，他们这些质量、速度，经常能听到球拍和球的这种声音，我觉得会刺激到我们，就会很兴奋，加上对手是男孩，你必须注意力集中，可能会练得更实一点。"

Atas Newton said:

Thanks for posting the results. Ding Ning also appeared to have played Zheng Peifeng, any news on that? I hope we get to see some videos of the matches.

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Yeah the six core female players (DN, LSW, CM, WMY, ZYL and SYS) going for WTTC 2019 are all training with as well as being pitted against members of the male team. From what I know, only LSW emerged victorious over Xu Yingbin while her other five colleagues all fell to their opponents (but I have no details about the exact match-ups but ZYL seemed to have fought Niu Guankai from the pictures). Would be interesting to know who took down Chen Meng (dubbed the best performing female CNT member at the moment) and Wang Manyu (who allegedly plays the most aggressively masculine style amongst them all)

The most recent news I have are mainly about them filming the annual theme song.

drunix80 said:

Playing against Liu Shiwen is tricky for male players. It is almost like playing Harimoto in my opinion (without the screaming).

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Also because she's learning some new tricks from Ma Lin, particularly now that there are younger players who are faster than her so it's not just about speed now. Although she did not maintain this strategy throughout (which was odd), her last five points in game 3 of Marvellous 12 against SYS were won based on good placement and control.

(start from 26:02)