THIRTY-SIX SEO HYO-WON “RETIREMENT? WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!”

Thirty-six-year-old national women’s table tennis player Seo Hyo-won (Korea Horse Society) will continue her quest next year when the Paris 2024 Olympic Games take place. On Sept. 29 at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games at the Archer Canal Sports Park Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China, Seo lost a 2-4 upset to Chinese Taipei’s Yi-Jing Chung in the women’s singles round of 16.With this victory, Seo concluded her campaign with one bronze medal in the women’s team event. At the 2014 Incheon Games and the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, Seo reached the quarterfinals of the singles competition, but this time she was eliminated earlier.”I wanted to give back to the national team for giving me the opportunity to play singles, so I worked hard to prepare, but I came up short,” Seo said after the match. Seo had already played against Zheng Yijing many times. She watched countless videos of Zheng Yijing’s games and analyzed her attacking moves in order to better prepare .As a defensive player, Seo Hyo-won was able to cut through Zheng Yijing’s attacks. In particular, she moved efficiently, as if she knew where the ball was going to be, but Zheng Yijing was “one step” ahead of her .Seo Hyo-won is at an age where she could retire at any time. Both of her knees are bad. In particular, the cartilage in her left knee is almost non-existent .As a result, there is speculation that Hangzhou will be her last international competition .Earlier this month, during the Asian Championships in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, there were reports that she would retire after the Asian Games .But Seo has no such plans. As soon as the Asian Games are over, she will be traveling to China and Turkey to compete in World Table Tennis (WTT) events .She hopes to be selected to represent South Korea at the World Championships in Busan next February. “I will compete with the juniors and if I become good enough, I will challenge for the world championships, and if I lose, I will support the juniors,” Seo said .As long as she’s good enough, she’ll keep trying. However, she doesn’t want to set her sights too high. “Rather than looking far away, I just look ahead and try to run with all my strength. If I look too far ahead, I might get tired,” she said. Competing against competitors of her own generation at the Games reinforced her determination to continue her international challenge. In the quarterfinals against Hong Kong in the women’s team event, Seo played third singles and won 3-2 against 30-year-old Li Ho-ching. Her opponent, Zheng Yijing, is 31 years old and, broadly speaking, part of the same generation as Seo. All three of them once competed in the top 10 of the world rankings. Now, neither Zheng Yijing nor Li Hoqing are feeling well, and Zheng Yijing, in particular, limped a bit on the day and still managed to pull off an upset win over Seo Hyo-won.”I also had a sore knee today, but she showed it and I didn’t,” Seo laughed. “I felt like a ‘comrade-in-arms’ with Zheng Yijing because we were both competing through pain,” she continued .Seo and Zheng Yijing played together in the Japanese professional league. They shook hands after the match to show their mutual respect .Korea Table Tennis hopes Seo Hyo-won can stay on the team for a long time .After Shin Yoo-bin (Korean Air) and Jeon Ji-hee (Mirae Asset Securities), Seo is the only player who can reliably fill the No. 3 role .There are still many players who find Seo’s defensive table tennis tricky, especially European players who haven’t faced her often .If Seo can keep her form up until Paris 2024, it will be a huge boost for the team. “I’m still having fun 카지노사이트 playing table tennis,” she says with a big smile, but she still has a lot of balls to sharpen.