(by Steve Hopkins) The first ITTF event of 2021 ended today with Dimitrij Ovtcharov’s dominating win over Lin Yun-Ju.  With the Olympics just four months away, Ovtcharov showed he may be peaking at just the right time.  In fact, his run to the this title, and its $15,000 purse, included consecutive upset wins over Falck […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTFWorld) UPDATE: Semifinal Results Simon Gauzy, France’s best player, is one of the quickest players in the German League – seemingly getting to every ball and often moving away from the table for deep drives or lobs.  Today, however, the quickness advantage is clearly on the side of Lin Yun-Ju – […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The WTT Contender Event in Doha is down to the Final 4, and three of four in the Men’s Semifinals are Butterfly Players.  Top seeded Tomokazu Harimoto had smooth sailing again with a 3-1 win over Korea’s Cho.  Dimirij Ovtcharov, World No. 12,  won the first, third, and fifth games on the […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Timo Boll posted a video of his warmup routine to his YouTube channel this week.  *He started out with a plug for his channel and noted that he had recently reached 25,000 subscribers. The video continues for over 10 minutes showing his normal routine including stretches, light warm-up, and work with a […]

(by Steve Hopkins) USA Table Tennis continued its T2 Challenge Series this week the first match of Season 2.  The players this week were Jimmy Butler from Team Alpha and Deng Zhen from Team Omega.  At 50 years old, Butler is one of the most decorated male players in US history, and Deng Zhen is […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The WTT Contender Event in Doha is down to the Final 8, and the top two seeds are cruising.  Top seeded Tomokazu Harimoto took down Sangsu Lee 3-1 and second-seeded Hugo Calderano dominated Jaehyun An 3-1. On Friday, Calderano will face German League Ochsenhausen teammate Simon Gauzy a Tomokazu will face another […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The WTT Contender Event in Doha is down to the Final 16, and most of the big names are still alive. The top two seeds, Harimoto and Calderano each advanced easily.  Aside from those two slots which were reserved for the top two seeds, the other positions were placed by random selection […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The first ITTF event of 2021 is officially underway in Doha, and the 8 qualifiers have been decided.  Levenko, Sirucek, Bobocica, Morizono, Alamiyan, Habesohn, Cho, and Geraldo have advanced to join the top 16 seeds in the Main Draw.  And, just like the past two days, some of the qualifiers best known […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The first ITTF event of 2021 is officially underway in Doha, Qatar.  The “Middle East Hub” is a series of four events that begin with the WTT Contender Event this week, then the WTT Star Contender Event on March 5, then the World Singles Qualification Tournament on March 14, and finally the […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photo from prideofsportawards) At age 14, Welsh junior table tennis champion, Anna Hursey, is already making international waves.  She was recognized last year by the UN last year as a Young Champion and included in the UN Climate Change initiative that uses sport to help get the message out.  Hursey speaks English […]