The main players of the national table tennis are currently actively preparing for the finals of the Table Tennis Super League, and this season's finals will be played in Shenzhen, and the arrangements for some events in 2024 have also been officially released. For the Chinese team, 2024 is a year with a lot of major competitions, including the restarted World Cup, the team competition of the World Table Tennis Championships, the mixed team World Cup, and the Grand Slam. Of course, for the Chinese team, the most important thing is the Paris Olympics in July, which is also the focus of all our preparations.
In the more important competition in January, there are two main national table tennis players who will decide to participate, one is the men's finals, which is the men's finals in 2023, and the five main forces of the Chinese team have all been qualified, and the other is the two competitions in Doha, one is the regular season competition in Doha, and the other is the Doha Planet Challenge. Previously, the main team of the Chinese team will play in the Doha Planet Challenge, which has 600 points, which is slightly higher than the regular season and lower than the Grand Slam and Champions Cup. However, in the regular season of Doha before the Planet Challenge, the Chinese team made a very surprising decision this time, that is, not only the main players will not participate, this may not be surprising to everyone, even our second-tier players and young players will not participate in this regular season.
Because the distance between the regular season in Doha and the Planet Challenge is relatively close, the Chinese team has always attached more importance to this game, and often sends some young players or players on the edge of the second team to play the regular season, and then let the main players play the Planet Challenge. Why is it so important to play this part of the regular season in Doha?
As we mentioned earlier, these two competitions are basically next to each other every year, so there are some foreign players and international celebrities who often practice the regular season in Doha to adapt to the local venues, venues and time differences in order to better prepare for the Planet Challenge. So the Doha regular season has become one of the more important competitions in the regular season, and the training value is very high, so we will send some young players to participate.
In the regular season of the last Doha competition, the Chinese team performed very well, but this time we not only did not participate in the main force, but even the substitutes did not appear, which is indeed a pity, the list of participants in the Doha regular season has been released, and it is really a star-studded group. Especially in the men's singles, in addition to the five main forces of the Chinese team. Basically, the top 10 players in the world are here, and the top 10 players in the women's singles world are also here except for the players of the Chinese team, so the luxury of this participation is really high, but our youngsters, including some marginal players, did not come to participate in this regular season game, which is still a pity.
Of course, Liu Guoliang must have his own considerations, especially the table tennis Super League at the end of the year, the schedule is relatively intensive, and after these games in Doha in January, the Chinese team will enter the preparation for the World Table Tennis Championships team competition, and these young players and members of the second team may also be needed to sparring our main players. Perhaps because of the dense schedule and the rational allocation of physical fitness, we gave up the regular season in Doha.