(by Steve Hopkins)
The next tour stop is the WTT Champions series event in Yokohama, Japan. The event starts on Tuesday and ends next weekend. This $500,000 event features 11 of the World’s top 15 men. Sora Matsushima will be the top seed and countryman Tomokazu Harimoto will be the third seed – giving Japan the inside track to win on home soil. Felix Lebrun, Lin Yun-Ju, and Jang Woojin round out the top five seeds in this very competitive event that also includes USA’s Kanak Jha (as the 16th seed).
The draws were released today, and there aren’t easy paths forward even for the top seeds. Sora Matsushima will face a very dangerous Zhou Qihao in the opening round and the winner’s path to the Semifinals will include Chen Yuanyu, Jang Woojin, and Anders Lind (among others). In the bottom half of the draw, Felix Lebrun faces the hot-and-cold Flavien Cotton, and then must face the winner of Shunsuke Togami and Benedikt Duda. And if that isn’t tough enough – whoever emerges from that corner of the draw will also have to get past Wen Ruibo or Hiroto Shinozuka. Kanak Jha faces Tomislav Pucar in the opening round on Wednesday – and he is in a section of the draw led by both Dang Qiu and Lin Yun-Ju.
On the Women’s side, Miwa Harimoto and Kuai Man are the top two seeds. Chen Xingtong, Wang Yidi, Hina Hayata, and Zhu Yuling all have solid chances to reach the Final – again, no easy matches in this Champions series event. USA’s Amy Wang has drawn Shin Yubin on Tuesday in one of the first matches of the week, and Lily Zhang will face Natalie Bajor on Thursday in one of the latest starting matches of the week.
Lots of action is scheduled all week.
The official match ball for the WTT Champions 2026 is the Butterfly Three-Star Ball R40+. And as the official equipment partner, Butterfly has also announced that their new Trazox table will debut at this event.
Visit ButterflyOnline.com for the latest table tennis news and results.
