Oleg Vasiliev was amazed by Shen and Zhao's short program and said it was really confident and mature skating. They don't change technically, but they are uncomparable when it comes to expressiveness, skating quality and artistry. He compared them to the wine that gets better with age, and said it's bad for Russia. He says Totmianina/Marinin comeback is 50/50 possible. They are very tired but they want to go on ice very bad and compete. They often come to him to train and choreograph the exhibition programs, but it's not the same.
Alexei Tikhonov said they probably should've withdrawn from the GPF since they didn't practice enough since Masha was sick. They'll start getting ready for the Nationals and will have more runthroughs of their program.