As early as September, Ling Zhi played a game with Jin Zhen at Xingyu Billiards. At that time, Jin Zhen severely criticized Ling Zhi's playing style, and even said that if Ling Zhi entered the profession in the future, he would
It’s a cancer among professional players!
Naturally, Ling Zhi would not lose confidence because of Jin Zhen's words, and of course he would not be afraid of him. However, if he met Jin Zhen on this occasion today, if he met him face to face, he might be ridiculed by him again.
In line with the principle that doing more is worse than doing less, Ling Zhi deliberately avoided Jin Zhen's sight and walked to an inconspicuous place.
"Lingzhi, you are back."
Huh? Even though she was standing in an inconspicuous position, Li Mengyao could still find her? She was really good at it, after all, there were so many people present.
"Well, did the training go well?"
"It's going very well. I'll probably be in charge of the national team this afternoon, and maybe I'll be able to referee your game!"
"Haha, I'll ask you to take care of me then."
"Yeah! But, I seemed to have seen Jin Zhen just now, Lingzhi, you..."
Li Mengyao hesitated to speak, as if she was worried that Ling Zhi would conflict with him again. Ling Zhi understood, smiled and comforted her and said:
"It's okay. I probably won't be able to touch him, so don't worry."
"Um."
The two chatted for a while, and Ling Zhi roughly knew the scale of participation in this competition.
As of 12 noon today, a total of 158 players have signed up to compete.
According to the estimation of the head referee Xie Yixin, there may be close to 30 people who have signed up and are in the elite group!
There are only more than 100 snooker players with professional qualifications in China, and today there may be 30 players close to professional level participating in the competition. This makes Lingzhi very excited. If he is lucky, he might be able to observe it today.
Some exciting showdowns!
Not long after, the time came to 1 o'clock. Li Mengyao returned to the referee team, and the head referee Xie Yixin began to shout to the players on the scene:
"Everyone, be quiet! Our competition today is about to start. Friends who are not participating in this competition, please turn off the channel. Thank you for your cooperation."
"We must first conduct a strength assessment. Next, I will read out the names. Those whose names are read will come to me to allocate tables. Ning Zetao..."
Ling Zhi listened to the referee shouting their names one by one. After these people came to Xie Yixin, they were immediately brought to a table by the second-level or third-level referees next to Xie Yixin, and began to hit some of the referees'
spherical.
Due to the limited number of referees, only 10 tables were opened for evaluation. When the actual competition comes, each table in the elite group will be assigned a referee, while the general group will be in charge of the circuit referee.
Lingzhi took a closer look. The referees first assessed the accuracy of the players' 5-point goals.
Of course, the 5-point point here is much simpler than the 5-point point that Lexus usually practices. The white ball is not very far from the blue ball and does not reach near the mouth of the bag.
But even so, there are still many people who can't hit a shot. This is the problem of the shot not being straight.
For these people, the referees directly gave them handicap points ranging from 20-40 points, which means that these players will be the first to get 20-40 points at the beginning of the game.
For players who are in and out of progress, the referees will further place a ball with three red balls to see how far the player can clear the ball. The more clears, the lower the handicap, which means that these players
The strength will be stronger.
"Yao Guangzhi."
After Ling Zhi heard this, he followed Yao Guangzhi to his table, where he easily scored three 5-pointers in a row, and then successfully cleared all the red balls in the three-red ball challenge.
Ling Zhi glanced at the scoreboard in the referee's hand, and the referee gave Yao Guangzhi a handicap of -24 points.
As expected of the runner-up in the Chinese Billiards Citizen Cup last year, he also has two brushes in snooker!
"Timely rain and dew."
Hmm? It sounds like a girl's name. Do girls really come to play snooker? That's really rare.
There were many people who had the same idea as Ling Zhi. They all looked in the same direction. Ling Zhi followed everyone's gaze and saw a girl of seventeen or eighteen years old with a single ponytail, holding her own special rod box and wearing white.
Wearing a shirt and a black vest with the words "Dongcheng Youth Billiards Association" written on the back, he jumped all the way to Xie Yixin's side.
"Uncle Xie, we meet again."
Xie Yixin smiled and nodded:
"It's true, you girl, how can others beat you when you are here?"
"Hehe, I meet masters every year. There are so many contestants this year, maybe I won't even make it to the top four."
"Okay, don't be modest. Then I'll give you -28 points this year?"
"Okay, no problem."
Shi Yulu just took advantage of the situation. She thought that she must have made some progress this year. If she were to test again and ask Uncle Xie to lower her acceptance score, wouldn't she have no chance to get it?
Champion?
She used to be young and didn't know how to hide her clumsiness. However, she showed her full strength during the test last year and ranked third from the bottom among the contestants in handicap. She was shocked at the time!
The third lowest handicap means that she was the third most powerful player on the field at that time. How is this possible?
So this year I just don’t expect it. If the score goes up, it means that she has regressed again, which is not a happy news. If the score goes down, haha... She has already longed for memory, and it is impossible to
Let the score lower!
Shi Yulu had made a small plan in her mind, but little did she know that Xie Yixin was very clear about her little care!
Xie Yixin can be regarded as a person who has experienced great storms and has refereed many professional competitions. The highest level one is the Xiangcheng World Open, with a championship prize of 150,000 eagle pounds. Among all international professional competitions in China at that time, it was
The tournament with the second highest prize money!
Therefore, Xie Yixin had a very clear understanding of the various thoughts of the players. Of course Xie Yixin knew what Shi Yulu thought. However, he just let the little girl make her own plans.
The reason for doing this is not because Xie Yixin is kind-hearted, but because there are many people present, so we should try to save as much time as possible.
Furthermore, he is very familiar with Shi Yulu. He has watched her play other games in the past year and has a very clear understanding of her strength. There is really no need to test her again.
Although it doesn't quite follow the rules, the rules are set by people. If you are the highest level here today, then you are the rule.
Thinking of this, Xie Yixin looked at the list again, raised his eyebrows slightly, and read out the next name:
Alexander Ashoks.
Xie Yixin raised his eyebrows not because he saw a foreigner's name, but because the person in charge of the registration process told him in advance:
This man is disabled!
There is no problem for people with disabilities to participate. If it is a problem with the mouth or ears, it will not affect playing billiards. But if it is a problem with the limbs...
Xie Yixin raised his head and looked for the foreigner.
After a while, I saw a man in a black coat walking over carrying his rod box. He was very tall, probably about 1.9 meters tall, with fair skin, a high nose, and deep gray eyes with a smile.
"Hello."
Xie Yixin took the initiative to say hello.
"Hello, sir."
Alexander simply responded.
Well, it seems there are no problems with speaking and hearing.
Xie Yixin looked around and suddenly found that Alexander's left hand was not exposed. He felt nervous. Could it be the situation he least wanted to see?
But come to think of it, it seems very impolite to ask someone about their disability in public.
Xie Yixin has seen disabled people. Unless they are missing arms or legs, most of these people are very secretive about their hidden illnesses and will not easily mention them to outsiders.
Since Alexander came wearing a coat in the summer, it means that he has more or less thoughts in this regard, so don't take the initiative to ask and wait for him to reveal himself.
"Please come to the table over there."
Xie Yixin pointed with his finger.
"Thanks."
Xie Yixin stared at Alexander's leaving back, thoughtfully. The people around him were also interested in seeing the foreigner's performance. Although they were all curious about why he wore so many clothes, no one was surprised.
Think about the direction.
Alexander came to the table and put his club box on the table with his right hand. From then on, he operated with his right hand the whole time. Even when assembling the club, he relied on the creaking socket of his left arm to help fix it, and never exposed his left hand.
Soon, the referee helped him arrange the ball shape at the 5-point mark.
At this time, Alexander finally rolled up the sleeve of his left arm with his right hand. There was a burst of exclamations in the scene, and some girls even screamed. The scene in front of them was beyond everyone's imagination:
Alexander did not have a left hand.
Yes, it literally means that both the big and small arms of the left arm are present, but there is no left hand!
Xie Yixin was mentally prepared, so he did not appear surprised. However, the referee girl in charge of Alexander was not so calm. She covered her mouth with her hands and could not recover for a long time.
Ling Zhi frowned. He really didn't expect Alexander to be a disabled person. But he was not very surprised, because there was no precedent for disabled people to play billiards.
Decades ago, O'Sullivan played against a player with similar symptoms of a disability in an exhibition match (Note 1).
However, Lexus only saw the video of that game, but today he was lucky enough to see disabled people playing billiards live.
Alexander seemed to be used to this kind of scene. He didn't show any panic. Instead, he lay down calmly and put his left forearm across the table. Ling Zhi could see that there was a deep mark on his left arm.
Come on, that's where he usually plays the stick.
I saw Alexander put the club on his left forearm and slowly moved the club with his right hand without any shaking. After three times, he suddenly exerted force and the blue ball fell into the bag. The surrounding audience spontaneously burst into warm applause.
It also includes Lexus.
Others may have thought it was not easy for Alexander to score this goal, so they applauded.
However, Ling Zhi felt that since Alexander chose to compete, he would not have a big problem with the straight shot.
The reason why Ling Zhi applauded was more because he had the courage to accept everything about himself, dare to come to this stage, and dare to show everything about himself with an indifferent attitude.
All of this seems so valuable!
Note 1: This story is not made up by me, but a real case. On February 10, 2018, O'Sullivan participated in a charity exhibition match in Lincoln, England. During the match with a player with a disabled left hand, O'Sullivan hit
A single stroke of 147 points. O'Sullivan, who disdained to hit 147 in the official competition, hit 147 in the exhibition match. He gave this disabled player the greatest respect!
On the first day of the exhibition match, O'Sullivan donated 3,000 pounds to the International Disabled Billiards Federation.