(by Steve Hopkins) Kanak Jha and Benedikt Duda were the top ranked players in this week’s Dusseldorf Masters event.  Each advanced to the Final where Duda outlasted Jha for a 3-2 win with the players traded games and momentum. Sunday’s event was the fifth of seven events.  Like the other events in the series, there was […]

(by Steve Hopkins) China announced their Olympics squad today. The team includes World No. 1 Fan Zhendong, World No. 2 Xu Xin, and World No. 3 Ma Long.   There are no surprises here as the event seeding will be based upon World Ranking and Chinese players hold the top three spots in those Rankings. Interesting, […]

(by Steve Hopkins) The Boston Table Tennis Center is in Medford, just North of Cambridge and Somerville and only four miles from  Boston’s city center.  The club is just off I-93 (Northern Expressway), and near the Orange and Blue Lines, providing easy access to the greater Boston metropolitan area. The BTTC is a 3000 square foot […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photos by ITTFworld) Often there is a changing of the guard after an Olympics – a time when top players retire and move on to their next challenge.  In a normal cycle the Olympics would have occurred a year ago and the landscape of our sport would already have changed – but this […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photo by ITTFworld) If this event were a true Olympic Trials, the table tennis world might have just been turned on its collective ears. As each of the Chinese Olympic Team members fell to much lower ranked opponents – and if the winner made the team, a relatively unknown Zhou Qihao would […]

(by Steve Hopkins, photo by ITTFworld) The teams are already set, so the 5-day event is more of a warm-up than a true Olympic Trial.  That said, the goal of the Chinese was to have a competitive internal event that simulated the format of the Tokyo Olympics and prepared their top players for July.  What […]

(by Steve Hopkins) Sunny Culture & Sports Center is located at Scarborough, Sheppard, and Brimley Street in Scarborough – a city within the greater Toronto Metropolitan area.  The club is just off of the Ontario 401 Express, about 25 kilometers to the North of the Toronto city center and easily accessible via public transportation. The […]

(by Steve Hopkins) This is a Butterfly Favorite.  One of the strongest players through the Dusseldorf Masters Series a year ago was Egypt’s Omar Assar. This year in his first two appearances, he has already logged two Finals appearances (winning one).  The World’s No. 38 has an athletic and exciting style – amazing court coverage […]

(by Steve Hopkins) A week ago, the Dusseldorf Masters event was absent big names and dominated by younger players.  This Sunday was the fourth event (of seven) and it included Ovtcharov, Qiu, and Assar – but the younger players still grabbed many of the headlines. Egypt’s Omar Assar won today.  He played all three of the […]