1. Last time, most serves were going to Wang's left, and off-table. This time, they were to the right, and few were off-table. Wang was especially bad in receiving Eloi's serves this time; either he directly lost the point, or he gave Eloi easy balls to attack.
2. Wang did not play well when he was ahead. Eloi, once he realized his serves were working, was much more aggressive in returning serves, and with much more variety. He took risks returning serves and in rallies, frequently gaining the upper-hand over Wang. Wang had many weapons that could win points that he was afraid to use in this match; these powerful weapons or techniques are more risky, and he was afraid to take risks.
3. Wang was unable to modify his strategy to cope with the changes on the court. His training was a little too one-dimensional, so his games were a little too "straight". When the opponents operate outside of his normal training targets or boundaries, by, for example, varying the rhythm or shot placements, Wang was unable to quickly adept to these changes.
But the most important reason why Wang lost was because he was carrying
a very heavy mental baggage. (He was too afraid to lose, and therefore
not willing to take risks, or otherwise play to his full capability.) Under
normal circumstances, Wang should have no trouble beating Eloi.
The first semifinal was the most crucial. When Ma was behind 2 games,
I felt that he had a very slim chance. Unexpectedly in the 3rd game Waldner
started making mistakes: he relaxed a little, and played conservatively,
thinking he had the match won. That gave Ma a chance to attack, and then
when Waldner tried to play tight again, things were different. Relatively
speaking, Waldner is weaker against penholders, especially when you have
steadied the backhand and he cannot use your power. Even if Ma had lost,
I felt than Liu can beat Waldner in the final.
For today, we have been preparing the last two years. After the 44th
Worlds, we went back to look at the videotapes, and realized that technically
we were slightly behind Waldner, Primorac and Samsonov. During the last
2 years, we focused on technically solving the problem of how to change
from defense to offense after receiving serves. Even more importantly,
we worked on improving the mental strength of our players. That's why I
was confident we could win the MS title. The key is the first 3 days of
competition. As long as we did not self-destruct, our chances were very
good. Looking back, a lot of our decisions were correct. After winning
the Pro-Tour titles in Paris, we skipped all the international tournaments,
even though that led to drops in our rankings and resulted in 3 fewer eligible
players for the Worlds. But we have maintained our confidence against foreign
players, and we played with steadiness even when we faced difficulties
in matches. Actually in MS, we had to struggle to win many times, and we
only won by a few points. If we had relaxed a little, or were a little
weaker in some aspects, we would not have won the MS title.