Yesterday, the finals of the Swedish Open Championship were played between Yan An and Fan Zhendong. Yan An won this fantastic match with 4 - 2. It was an absolutely amazing match, and I enjoyed every second of it.
Personally I thought Fan Zhendong was going to win this match, considering his results on the previous tournaments. But if you think about it, it's not all that weird, after all, Zhendong is still only 16 years of age, which is incredible when you look at his results.
Yan An has also achieved quite a lot in his carreer. If you know that he is also 'only' 20 years of age, you know it's quite remarkable that he is already on place 8 of the ITTF world ranking. But the thing he is most remembered for, is defeating Ma Long 2 times. There aren't much players who can say that, as Ma Long is the current number 1 on the world ranking.
The tournament itself was also very outstanding in general. Although I thought it was very disappointing that there were none of the European stars (like Boll, Ovtcharov,...) participated in this tournament. But as I already said, I watched some of the matches on livestream, and I loved the matches that I saw.
For the first time, Stiga and ittf have organized a trick shot competition. Here's how it works: if you think you can perform the best table tennis trick shot, you simply make a video of you performing your trick shot, and upload it on the Stiga website. If you win the competition, you win a trip to Dubai for 1 week, with 2 persons for the GAC group 2013 ITTF World Tour Grand Finals, AND you win a one-year sponsorship bij Stiga!
86 people have entered the competition, with some very amazing video's. If you want to check out some of the entries, you should watch the video in the end.
Personally, I think the winner (Josep Antón Velázquez from Spain) is a very good trickshot, but some of the other video's are more impressive. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely incredible what he does, but I just think that some other participants did some trick shots that were even more incredible!
Stiga is planning to do the same competition again next year. If that's the case, I will probably give it a try. Why not, right? And if you can win amazing prizes like the one from this year, it's absolutely worth a try.
It doesn't always have to table tennis related, so today I have some other exciting news. Japan's top player Jun Mizutani yesterday announced on his blog that he's getting married!
Unfortunately, his blog is in Japanese, but luckily I found a translated version:
"I
suddlenly report that I registered my marriage with the general woman who I
have been together with for a long time. Today on 22nd November 2013, this day
being the memorial day for me and my wife in Japan. Thanks in advance for your
help in Jun Mizutani who starts the life as for the feeling for the world
championship newly without forgetting the feeling of thanks."
Mizutani is lefthanded Japanese player, who is 24 years of age at the moment. He has already won quite a lot of titles, for example the Korean Open in 2009, wich was his first victory on the ITTF Pro Tour Singles.
Last year, in 2012, Jun Mizutani reached his highest rank (so far) on the ITTF World Ranking list, he was ranked fifth. At this moment, he is ranked on place 14, wich is still very impressive.
That's it for today, as there isn't much table tennis-related news to tell you.
Thanks for reading, and I'll be back with more news!
From 13 'til 17 November, the German Open (a world tournament for points for the world ranking) was played in Berlin. Zhang Jike originally was the player with the most chance of winning the tournament, together with Timo Boll.
But despite the fact that everyone thought these 2 would play each other for winnings, the number 5 seed came in and won the German Open.
Fan Zhendong, a Chinese player of only 16 years of age (!), beat Dimitrij Ovtcharov in the final match with four to one.
In his victory, he beat the players who are on place 4, 5 and 9, while he is currently ranked on place 11 on the world ranking. Of course it's pretty clear to everybody that his ranking will go up immensely, when the ranking will be renewed in December.
In comparison, the previous player who achieved something that impressive was Ma Long, and he is currently ranked N°1 on the ITTF World Ranking. Jean-Michel Saive (our national pride) became the best Belgian player for the first time at the age of 16 (1985), which is also very impressive.
So in my opinion, Fan Zhendong will be great a player who will achieve a lot in his future, so we have to watch out for him in the next tournaments.
For the first time ever, we had an international tournament voor players with a disability in Belgium. So I guess we can say the pressure was pretty high. However, everything went very smooth, thanks to a lot of volunteers. So all by all, the tournament was a great succes.
There are 10 types of 'disabillities', which indicates the level of your abilities. The types from 1 - 5 are people in a wheelchair, and types 6 - 10 are the people who are still capable of walking. The lower the number for each group, the worse the disability is.
Three of the eightteen Belgian players managed to reach the final in their respective categories: gold en silver for Mathie Loick and Marc Ledoux in categorie 8, and Ben Despineux, who received the silver medal in categorie 7.
Unfortunately, next year there won't be a Belgian Open. The reason for this is that the organisation wanted to wait, and see how the first edition went. If everything went smooth (wich we now know, it did), they would try it again in 2015, because if you want to organise an international tournament, it has to be registered more than a year before date.
Xu Xin, currently number 2 on the world ranking, defeated Vladimir Samsonov in the final match with 4-1. Earlier, he had already defeated players like Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Patrick Baum. One of the best European players, Timo Boll, was defeated in the semi-finals by Samsonov. In the small final match (the match for 3rd & 4th place), Ovtcharov defeated Boll in 4 short sets.
The only Belgian player in the tournament, Jean-Michel Saive, didn't make it further than the group phase, in wich he lost from Marcos Freitas and Yang Zi. Jean-Mi is without a doubt the best Belgian player (despite his age of 43 years old!), but the competition in the rest of the world, and China in specific) is way too high.
Next month the world ranking will be updated, so I think these results will surely have an influence on that ranking.
From 13 'til 17 November, the German Open (a world tournament for points for the world ranking) was played in Berlin. Zhang Jike originally was the player with the most chance of winning the tournament, together with Timo Boll.
For the first time ever, we had an international tournament voor players with a disability in Belgium. So I guess we can say the pressure was pretty high. However, everything went very smooth, thanks to a lot of volunteers. So all by all, the tournament was a great succes.
