by Henry Chen 

Impressively, since the start of the men’s competition, the team has remained unbeaten. They boast a record of seven wins and zero losses.

After the latest round of the competition, Weiqiao’s coach Yin Xiao, revealed his satisfaction with the performance of his players, especially Ma Long who has been a major contributor to the team since day one. Ma Long has posted ten wins and one loss.

However, achieving such a record did not come easily for the Rio Olympic Men’s Singles champion. In fact, in the seventh round of the competition, Ma Long was forced into the decider by Yu Ziyang.

The young and less experienced player from Anhui was confident and brave enough to confront the Grand Slam champion; his efforts led him to post a close encounter against Ma Long. However, as a seasoned player, Ma Long knew what to do and sealed it the match (9-11, 11-4, 12-10, 9-11, 7-3).

Coach Yin Xiao saw a big improvements from Yu Ziyang.

“The young player Yu Ziyang has improved really fast. He was very tenacious. What he showed is worthy of recognition”, Yin Xiao

On the other hand, the coach was not worried about Ma Long. As an experienced player Ma Long was able to show a variety of techniques. He explained that the win was as expected.

Shandong Weiqiao implemented a change in the round. They fielded Xue Fei and Lin Gaoyuan in the doubles, recording a three games win (11-5, 0-11, 8-6). The duo impressed the coach who said that their performance was extremely good considering that it was their first time to pair for a doubles.

“It has laid a good foundation for the subsequent matches,” Yin Xiao

Currently, Shandong Weiqiao is tied with Bayi in the top spot. Weiqiao is scheduled to face Shandong Luneng in the next round while Bayi will fight against Anhui. If both teams will be victorious in the next round, then they will have their face-off battle in the ninth round scheduled on Saturday 12th November.