(by Steve Hopkins) The qualifiers are over and the Round of 64 was played on Sunday.  The top seeds have byes in the first round, but will see action starting on Monday.  Hugo Calderano, Dan Qiu, Kanak Jha, Lin Yun-Ju, Darko Jorgic, Patrick Franziska, Truls Moregard, and others  all have byes.  In early action, France’s […]

(by Steve Hopkins) There was movement at the top of the World Rankings this week as Liang Jingkun moved from No.5 to No.3, Lin Yun-Ju moved up to No.6, and Xu Xin is up two spots to No.8.  Fan Zhendong  and Ma Long remain in the first and second spots.  Calderano and Harimoto are in […]

(by Steve Hopkins) At this point, everyone who follows table tennis knows World No. 5 Tomokazu Harimoto.  Tomokazu’s younger sister, Miwa, has slowly been improving and the world’s ninth ranked junior may be poised to make waves in the adult circuit as well.  In this qualification rounds of this week’s WTT Star Contender in Doha, […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The ITTF Foundation worked with Ukrainian Table Tennis Federation officials to help get four Ukrainian players to the WTT Star Contender event that began on Friday in Doha.  The players, Tetyana Bilenko, Ganna Gaponova, Yaroslav Zhmudenko, and Margaryta Pesotska were all in Europe (outside of the conflict zone in Ukraine).  The ITTF […]

(by Steve Hopkins) With their location just North of Atlanta in Suwanee, Atlanta International Table Tennis Academy has a strong presence in the largest metropolitan area in the Southeast.  AITTA is the result of a 2014 merger between Yang’s Table Tennis Academy and Atlanta Table Tennis Academy.  They have full-time coaches across and have been […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Since 2019, Fan Zhendong and Ma Long have faced off in 5 major tournament Finals.  In those meetings, Fan Zhendong had won three of the four previous meetings.  That is why even in an event like the Singapore Smash that finished today, with a highly competitive list of entrants encompasing nine of […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Three Chinese players made it into the Final 8 – all three advanced to the Final 4.  Fan Zhendong rolled over Patrick Franziska in three quick games, Liang Jingkun did almost the same thing to Kristian Karlsson in his 3-0 win, and Ma Long needed all five games to top Lin Yun-Ju.  […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Fan Zhendong and Ma Long each advanced to the Quarterfinals in the Singapore Smash, but both were pushed in their Round of 16 match.  World No.1 Fan Zhendong was down 1-2 against Korea’s Jaehyun An before fighting back to take the final two games for the win.  It was almost the same […]

(by Steve Hopkins) As of March 10, Puerto Rico has removed all vaccination and testing requirements associated with flights (domestic/US flights) and with the venue.  This is welcome news for organizers who have been focused on putting the final touches on what promises to be one of the premiere table tennis events of this Spring. […]

(by Steve Hopkins) After an opening round that saw three of the World’s Top 10 ranked men fall to upsets, the Singapore Smash moved on to the Round of 32 – and the competitive field took more casualties. Timo Boll (World No.9)  fell to Japan’s Yukiya Uda 3-2.  Benedikt Duda also knocked out World No.14 […]