Diary Entry
May 22nd 2013
For the last six years Wang Hao has been stopping me from achieving more in my table tennis career. Right now I just lost to him for the third time in a row in the semi-finals stage of the World Championships. I thought I had the advantage this year. I keep rewatching the same game over and over again. I could've done so much better! I look at the screen during the crucial points and groan over my mistakes. Right now my heart feels cold and heavy and all I feel is emptiness inside me. I've been training and working so hard for so long and I wonder if I'll ever be better than I am now. After sacrificing so much I still get pushed off the podium by Wang Hao. While he is my teammate I have mixed feelings about him. I am considering quitting my career as a table tennis player. I'm not one of the greats. I'm 25 years old now. Liu Gouliang by this age had already achieved a grand slam title. I haven't. I have no problems defeating players from overseas yet I still lose to Wang Hao every time. Even my friend Zhang Jike has already achieved a grand slam as a 24 year old last year. I know that Xia wouldn't like it if I stopped playing table tennis. So because of this I will continue my training for the next world championships. For the past 6 years I have suppressed all my bad emotions that I have felt and have tried to just focus on my table tennis, but after this loss I feel like I cannot keep going down this route. All my emotions have just bubbled up in my head and I feel like playing in this national team there are too many strict rules and always pressure to act perfectly at all times of the day. After 2015 if I don't achieve anything significant I may quit. There isn't anything left here for me to do. There are more people to fight for the honor of China now. More people that aren't me. I've always looked up at legends like Liu Gouliang and Kong Linghui but at this moment I realize that they aren't the same heroes I saw them as. They're just people. At this point in time I feel like I fell down the deepest hole on the planet. All the work between 2011 and this year has led to me failing to prevail to defeat Wang Hao yet again. I know that my friend Ding Ning can understand. She has lost this year as well as last year's Olympics. It's good that I have the right people beside me to comfort me. I'm writing in this diary for the first time in months. It helps me keep in touch with myself. The last 48 hours have been hell for me. I couldn't even draw out the courage to watch the finals in the stadium. Last night I was walking over there and as I walked into the stadium I felt the flashbacks of my match reappear. I ran out and fell into my hotel bed. Tonight I wilk be going out to celebrate with Zhang. He deserves this victory.