The failure of table tennis mixed doubles at the Olympics had both subjective and objective reasons.
Table tennis mixed doubles was an additional event proposed by the hosts of the Tokyo Olympics. It was premeditated by Japan. A host doesn't make someone's wedding dress if you're not sure. The original conditions for adding mixed doubles were proposed by Japan. The two athletes participating in mixed doubles must be members of a team competition.
The key to mixed doubles is the men. If one man doesn't play well or his power is bad, he can just drag the match to death. Although Zhang Yining has no opponents, I have heard that even the men's table tennis team can't participate in team training, so the men in mixed doubles are very important. The Japanese like this too. Ma Long and Fan Zhendong both want to join the team and play the insurance policy. Ma Long is too old to play all three events at the same time, while Fan Zhendong is relatively young to play all three events at the same time. Xu Xin can only play mixed doubles. Xu Xin is not too young to compete physically with Mizutani Falcon. In addition, Xu Xin lost to the Mizutani Falcons in Rio, so the Japanese team calculated carefully.
Let's look at the women. Chen Meng and Sun Yingsha want to protect this group and the women's singles. While Sun Young Sha is also young enough to play three events like Ito, Sun honestly didn't make an early appearance. Ito is really older than Sun Yingsha. China could only send Liu Shiwen to play mixed doubles. Again, Liu Shiwen's age is not dominant at all, far below Ito's. Moreover, even in singles, where both Liu Shifen and Ito are currently 50-50, Liu Shifen's mental strength almost makes sense, and they often fail to stand up to critical moments.
In fact, I'd probably get flamed for saying that Seo Shin's level of play. I think fans overestimate Xu Xin (who dropped goals in both Rio and Tokyo). In the past, like Liu, he rarely lost foreign wars, except for Lao Wa. At that time, two kings and a horse basically didn't lose foreign wars (Athens Olympics was also fatal). Later, Zhang Jike and Ma Long gave a sense of stability and confidence. Xu Xin often lost foreign wars, such as Mizutani Falcon and Zhang Ben. Xu Xin lost many times, Ma Long and Fan Zhendong are much better and don't feel nervous about playing because the strength is there.
Japan's study of Xu Xin is very deep, and the tactical implementation is very good. The Japanese combination combined Xu Xin's characteristics and limited his competition. Think about the mixed doubles final. There are a limited number of male players. How do you play? Ito is not under Liu Shiwen and Mizutani Falcon is playing well. We saw Liu Shiwen dropping more points in the match, but have you thought about why? Xu Xin's strength is his forehand, but Xu Xin's forehand is very limited. The forehand repeatedly missed and the Japanese team often hit the ball to Xu Xin's backhand. Liu Shiwen was left near the stage. Can Liu Shiwen resist?
Why did the Japanese team hit Xu Xin's far side of the stage? In fact, the Japanese team studied Xu Xin beforehand and tampered with the size of the court. They made the court smaller and smaller, much smaller than the standard size, which greatly restricted Xu Xin, who is good at long-distance running, and could not fully utilize his strengths. It was essentially inevitable that the men in mixed doubles would play poorly and lose.
In fact, all this must have occurred to Guoping, but why didn't they do something about it? It may also help the enemy a little. I think with Xinwen's strength, they are 70-80% confident that they can win. In fact, strength-wise, the two will never lose. As you can see from the first two matches, they can easily win. But I really didn't expect Japan's joint tactics to be implemented with such determination that it eventually toppled Xinwen; Guo Ping may also have thought that dispatching Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha would have an impact on the team and the singles, which would mean giving up from a strategic point of view. But whatever the reason, all in all, we lost, and frankly, it's still a case of us not being strong enough to be arrogant.
Next, President Liu will definitely focus on the mixed doubles, and I believe Paris will not lose. Looking at Ma Lin's expression on the sidelines, I remembered Liu Guoliang and Wang Hao's lonely return in Athens. It's really hard. Table tennis is too special in China. Losing badminton is forgivable, not having a gold medal in gymnastics is tolerable, and it can even be accepted by women's volleyball. But table tennis cannot lose. Why we can't lose is because our athletes must apologize to the fans. This is a painful phenomenon.