The World Table Tennis Championships are important not only in themselves but also because they affect the members to be chosen for the 2012 Olympics. There is speculation that Ma Long, having lost in the semi-finals, will not get a place in the Olympics. The two places that are decided are Wang Hao and Zhang Jike, who are ranked 1 and 3 and were also runner-up and champion, respectively, in the WTTC. The third would usually go to the highest ranked remaining player, who is Ma Lin.
Although I like Ma Lin, he is getting old, and I think Ma Long would be a much stronger competitor next year.
Showing posts with label table tennis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label table tennis. Show all posts
Monday, May 23, 2011
WTTC 2011
The World Table Tennis Championships finished last week. As I mentioned before, they were held in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. The men's champion from last time, Wang Hao, got to the final, but he lost in 6 sets to the new champion, Zhang Jike. Zhang Jike moved up into the top ten in the world rankings only comparatively recently, so he is much less well-known than players like Wang Hao, Wang Liqin, and Ma Lin. But I suspect he will fairly soon be number 1 in the rankings and easily findable on YouTube.
Ma Lin lost in the quarterfinals.
Ma Lin lost in the quarterfinals.
Monday, May 16, 2011
WTTC: new world champion
The World Table Tennis Championships in Rotterdam in Holland have finished, I think. The men's singles final took place yesterday, between Wang Hao, the world no. 1 and the champion in the previous world championships in 2009 (held in Yokohama), and Zhang Jike, a 23-year-old player who has been rising quickly up the world rankings over the last year.
The match was a contrast of styles. Wang Hao plays penhand style, and his powerful backhand distinguishes him from most penhold players, while Zhang Jike plays with a shakehand grip. Wang Hao is 27, and, unless Zhang Jike has an injury, it's difficult to imagine Zhang not taking the world number 1 ranking away from him.
The match was a contrast of styles. Wang Hao plays penhand style, and his powerful backhand distinguishes him from most penhold players, while Zhang Jike plays with a shakehand grip. Wang Hao is 27, and, unless Zhang Jike has an injury, it's difficult to imagine Zhang not taking the world number 1 ranking away from him.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Kenta Matsudaira
Kenta Matsudaira is a Japanese male table tennis player. At present, he's ranked 32 in the world. He is 20 years old. He became famous in the world table tennis championships in 2009, when he played the world number 4 Ma Lin in the quarter-finals and nearly won the match, getting to 4-1 ahead in the final set before finally losing.
He hasn't really done anything terribly exciting since then, but that performance was enough to launch him into the twenties and thirties in the world rankings, from the fifties and sixties though most of the previous year.
He hasn't really done anything terribly exciting since then, but that performance was enough to launch him into the twenties and thirties in the world rankings, from the fifties and sixties though most of the previous year.
Ai Fukuhara
Ai Fukuhara has been a darling of the Japanese table tennis scene for a long time now, though recently she has been eclipsed by the younger Kasumi Ishikawa. Fukuhara has a long and varied experience with table tennis, including about a year (?) playing Chinese league table tennis for a provincial team. That is no doubt one of the main reasons for her high world ranking, which is at present 7.
That ranking is a bit of a surprise, because in Japan she generally loses out to Ishikawa (number 10) and Sayaka Hirano (number 11), and as far as I know she has never won the national championships in Japan.
That ranking is a bit of a surprise, because in Japan she generally loses out to Ishikawa (number 10) and Sayaka Hirano (number 11), and as far as I know she has never won the national championships in Japan.
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