Jayce
A brave man is indestructible despite a thousand blows, and a wise man has unlimited potential. Once you start moving forward, you will be fearless.
From winning the championship to winning the championship again, Shi Yuqi has proved with time that persistence is the best way to defeat doubts. From the Coubertin Stadium to the La Chapelle Stadium, where the Olympics will be held, Shi Yuqi has completed a journey that belongs to a strong man. Although it has been 8 years since he won the French Open for the first time in 2016, this time he took on every challenge of the Olympic test match with a balanced heart and won 5 unanimous 2-0 victories without distraction.
Reaching the finals in three consecutive tournaments and winning two championships, Shi Yuqi has such a brilliant start to the year. He has taken “sticking to the goal” as the key word for victory. After experiencing the ups and downs, and encountering a fruitless season in 2023, the many difficulties in front of him are precisely the tempering road for Shi Yuqi’s transformation and growth. For him now, “even if the state is not there, you must show an upward mentality, firm performance, and fight for yourself.”
Double rainbow in Paris
In terms of self-discipline, Shi Yuqi is an athlete who does not need his coach to worry too much. On the days of the Paris competition, he would appear in the hotel restaurant around 7 o’clock to have breakfast. On the one hand, it was due to the time difference, and on the other hand, he was used to doing some strength exercises in the morning. Generally speaking, he would arrive at the venue two hours before the game. If the previous games were slow, he would adjust his rhythm and lie on his side on the yoga mat with his eyes closed to rest.
For Shi Yuqi, the Indian Open in January broke his 15-month championship drought. On this trip to France, he is eager to carry this rare momentum and continue to fight, fight, and solve problems in the game. Although it was often rainy in Paris in March, many famous players were eliminated “unexpectedly”, but Shi Yuqi kept holding on and seized every opportunity. In his draw, three of the five players were born in the 2000s, which also put high demands on his game rhythm and physical and mental state.
In the final against Kunlavut, the newly crowned world champion born in 2001, Shi Yuqi led all the way in the first game, but suffered a reversal at the end of the game, falling behind 19-20. At this critical moment, he scored 3 points in a row and won the first game 22-20. In the second game, Shi Yuqi got another brilliant start, leading his opponent 10-2, but the tenacious Kunlavut scored 7 points in a row and once again narrowed the score to 20-19. At the critical moment, Shi Yuqi once again scored key points and won 21-19, becoming the first men’s singles champion in this Olympic venue.
When he scored the winning point in the final, he, who usually played low-key in individual events, excitedly took off his jersey and threw it to the audience in the stands. This action was not only because he had to change into a new jersey for the upcoming All England Open, but more because he wanted to fully display this state of complete release and upward power at this moment.
Compared with his first French Open title 8 years ago, Shi Yuqi said lightly: “I am a little more mature now”. After the game, he admitted that he had encountered difficult moments in many matches in this station and had lost to some opponents. Psychological construction is particularly important. With the methods provided by his psychological teacher, he effectively switched and adjusted his attention during the game. This change played an extremely important role in his performance.
Before the game, coach Sun Jun posted a message on WeChat Moments with a photo of the national badminton men’s singles match, captioned: “It would be great if this was the Olympic final!” Shi Yuqi also told a story about him and his physical training teacher, coach Wei Lishen: “Usually in the morning, I would exercise. One day, teacher Wei said to me, ‘How come today is Thursday!’ I said, ‘It would be great if today was Sunday!’ This morning I also said to him: ‘Today is the last game’, and I hope the result can be brought to the final court!”
When we walked out of the competition venue, the Paris sky after being washed by rain was glowing with warm orange light, and a beautiful double rainbow also hung in the sky… I believe this was God’s response: the beautiful scenery will remain warm, and we will see you again in Paris.
Sleeping on straw and tasting gall and then returning
At the beginning of his return from suspension, Shi Yuqi’s world ranking dropped to 44th. If he hadn’t performed well in winning two championships in four months after his comeback at the end of 2022, he would have had to start from the qualifying rounds in all high-level events in 2023. In the four tournaments at the beginning of last year, Shi Yuqi reached the semi-finals twice. Although he was not a seeded player until the All England in March, he faced his old rival in his youth, Kanta Tsuneyama, in the first round, and the performance of the two was clear at a glance. In the second round, he tore through Kunlavut’s defense with a sharp attack. In the civil war against Weng Hongyang and in the semi-finals against Lee Zii Jia, he ended the suspense of the game early. However, the favorite to win the championship, the number one seed Anders Antonsen, was blocked by Huang Zhiyong in the quarterfinals, and the national badminton men’s singles replicated the final meeting five years ago.
In the new round of competition, Li Shifeng, who was born in 2000, is exactly four years younger than Shi Yuqi. In 2018, Shi Yuqi won the All England trophy in Birmingham, and Li Shifeng also won the Youth Olympic Games gold medal in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This All England championship made Shi Yuqi feel what his senior brother Lin Dan felt back then. He sat outside the spotlight and watched his junior brother being interviewed. Perhaps at that moment he saw himself who took over the baton from his predecessor five years ago. As time goes by, he has a young force shoulder to shoulder with him. This All England runner-up allowed him to return to the top ten in the world rankings. Although his performance in the open tournaments has been ups and downs since then, he still occupies a place.
At the same time, the Olympic qualifying competition kicked off with the opening of the Sudirman Cup. As the backbone of the team competition, Shi Yuqi played from the group stage to the final in Suzhou, winning five games and earning the title of “Sudirman Cup God of War”. The life-and-death battle was staged in advance in the semifinals. After losing a point in the mixed doubles, the success or failure of the men’s singles will be related to success or failure. He faced Naraoka Kodai, who was born in 2001. The opponent known as the “Big Grinding King” had active running and a large range of receiving and killing, but Shi Yuqi showed a fighting spirit to turn the tide and reverse the situation. 13 to 21, 21 to 15, 21 to 17 – he once again stood up when the team was in danger. Without this hard-won point, it would be difficult to see the shocking reversal of the men’s doubles, and there would be no three consecutive championships of the Chinese badminton team in the Sudirman Cup.
When he won the championship in the final, he hugged Jia Yifan to celebrate as he always did. Then, tears welled up in his eyes. His teammates and staff surrounded him and rubbed his cheeks. He knew that the overflowing emotions at this moment came from the mutual support of the team, the unremitting efforts of the fans at the scene, and his sincerity and persistence in this arena.
However, after the Sudirman Cup, Naraoka Kodai completed his revenge on him at the Singapore Open. In the following several matches, Shi Yuqi never overcame Naraoka’s “toughness”. Including the 2023 World Championships, he lost again in the quarter-finals. The new Japanese No. 1’s play was like a piece of taffy, which seemed to stick to Shi Yuqi’s agility, exhausting his physical strength and patience in one attack after another, and finally took advantage of the opportunity to enter.
But in the subsequent China Open, Shi Yuqi completely broke through this inner demon. It took him one and a half hours to fight with Naraoka all over the court. In the spirit of hard work, he risked being counterattacked and attacked at the right time. The restriction and counter-restriction involved the nerves of both of them. In the end, the opponent blocked the net and Shi Yuqi smiled with relief.
The competition continued one after another. The Asian Games team competition made Shi Yuqi, who played in the singles position, experience his darkest moment. He was in a low period and had a hard time in all three games. If it were not for his top-notch strength, after the first fierce battle, he would have been powerless to deal with his opponent in the second and third games. Although Shi Yuqi failed to score in the end, he made his opponent miserable. Coach Sun Jun said frankly, “It is not easy for him to play to this point.” Coach Qiao Bin also gave a high evaluation: “No matter whether the singles player wins or loses, the most important thing is that Shi Yuqi can try his best in every game. Even if he does not score, he still shows his tenacity and fighting spirit in the face of challenges. This performance is worthy of recognition.”
“What doesn’t kill me will make me stronger.” The feeling of competition pulled from the team competition allowed Shi Yuqi to advance steadily in the individual events. However, he once again finished with a silver medal in the final. The same script was even played out again in the fairy tale kingdom of Denmark.
Long conversations can produce results
Shi Yuqi has already experienced the difficulty of returning from injury in the Tokyo cycle. The bitterness of reaching the finals four times in one year, winning four silver medals, and the pain of losing to young teammates in succession have caused him to feel emotional. “What is the purpose of playing basketball?”
From the ups and downs in the first half of the year to the recovery in the second half, the two coaches of the men’s singles group, Sun Jun and Qiao Bin, gave earnest guidance time and time again, and finally achieved substantial progress after the European competition.
In the opinion of coaches, Shi Yuqi’s ups and downs in competitions with top players are more due to changes in mentality rather than technical or footwork defects. The three surgeries that transformed his body are like a time bomb, which always disrupts his inherent rhythm intentionally or unintentionally. Shi Yuqi tried new methods, but soon encountered setbacks, so he chose to give up and became impatient and aggressive.
Everyone went along with what he said at first, but after the European Games, Coaches Sun and Qiao chose to be more direct and told him, “If you want to continue on this path, you must make changes. This change is more psychological.”
The three of them had a long talk in the room while summarizing the performance of the European Games. They analyzed the impact of the consecutive losses on Shi Yuqi. The more unwilling you are to face it, the more you will vent it with a tough attitude, which actually has no real meaning. Therefore, you must dare to face your own problems. Shi Yuqi listened and put forward his concerns one by one.
After that conversation, Shi Yuqi began to change slowly, becoming more positive and less negative. Although sometimes he still has some stubborn ideas, for example, he thinks that shouting will waste energy and make people more tired, but in fact, he knows that this is just a way of escape. Since then, Shi Yuqi’s game state has begun to be different. He will try his best to think and do things in a positive way. Soon, he found that this direction was right and the effect was good, so he slowly entered this state and his results became more and more stable.
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