One thing that people have to understand with Zhang Jike is that he was always one weird character.
He would show up to tournaments and look like he was about to fall asleep against guys who he did not feel were a serious threat. He would be down 0-2 and decide to play midway through the third game and still win 4-2.
Even in the WTTCs he won, against the worse players, he looked like he didn't really care. It was part of his bad, or if you want, bad boy, attitude.
He was consistently underwhelming until something big was on the line. And yet, going into the 2011 WTTCs he was WR#3. And he came out of the tournament WR#2.
If you look at his world ranking history, there are a few months where he is number 1. But really, not too many.
Here. Look at what happens in this match with Patrick Baum:
I mean, that is the quarter finals of the 2013 WTTC and he is 5 game points away from going down 1-2. And yet he wins the match 4-1.
And then look at what he did in the next round:
That is the semi-finals of the 2013 WTTC. Xu Xin was ranked #1 at the time and many people thought that the WTTC finals would be a showdown between XX and ML.
In the run-up to the 2013 WTTC ZJK looked particularly underwhelming. And in the 2013 WTTC, while ML and XX were racking up 4-0 blowouts vs the lower tier players, ZJK had several performances where he didn't really look that good until the match was on the line.
So, this is actually part of the enigma of ZJK. Was he a guy who got hot at the right time? Was the bad play an act?
You also have to remember that, in 2009, as ML was WR#1 or 2 depending on the month, I am not sure ZJK was even in the top 10 yet.
We also have to remember ZJK got kicked off the CNT and then was allowed back on. So, there were a couple of years where he did not get the CNT training regimen.
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