By Henry Chen 

“Recovery is certainly much more difficult with the injury.” Zhang Jike said.

The Grand Slam champion has been missing a good number of competitions, both domestic and international since after the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. His time was occupied by a series of promotional activities and media appearances.

So when Zhang Jike was initially reported to participate in the Seamaster Qatar 2016 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals, excitement aroused especially from his fans. Aside from that, this year’s competition could be a good opportunity for him to finally secure the elusive title.

The anticipation however was broken after the 28-year old Chinese world champion was reported to withdraw from the competition which is scheduled to commence on 8th December.

It was reported that Zhang Jike suffered from a foot injury and would need some time to recuperate.

The main task of Zhang Jike as of now is to do well in his rehabilitation training. He currently trains two hours every day to recover from the injury and get back in shape.

The amount of time may not be that considerable but the quality is more concentrated and intense. According to the fitness coach, Zhang Jike can be back in action in a month’s time:

“If Zhang Jike will be able to maintain this amount of volume and frequency in his training, then it will just take around a month for him to get back in action.”

Zhang Jike also has a positive disposition towards his rehabilitation. He targets to be competing once again as soon as the battle season of 2017 commences.

“I am able to overcome the difficulties in the rehabilitation training after all, there is a competition scheduled in January and February. I’m hoping that I would be able to recover from the foot injury as much as possible. I would try not to leave any after-effects.” Zhang Jike concluded.