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.
