Erke Qatar Open
Chinese Stars Occupy Top Seeded Positions
Chinese players occupy the top four positions on the current
ITTF Men’s and Women’s World Ranking lists and
thus their names appear in the top four seeded positions in
the Men’s and Women’s Singles events at the Erke
Qatar Open, which commences in Doha on Tuesday 18th March
2008 concluding with the finals on Saturday 22nd March 2008.
Wang Hao is the top seed in the Men’s Singles event
followed by Ma Lin, Wang Liqin and Ma Long, whilst in the
counterpart female competition the order of merit is Zhang
Yining, Li Xiaoxia, Guo Yue and Wang Nan.
At the Salwa Cup Kuwait Open, which finished on Sunday 16th
March 2008, the Chinese women ruled supreme but their were
problems for the men, the top four all stumbled with Vladimir
Samsonov of Belarus emerging as the Men’s Singles champion.
In Doha, they have a point prove and if one member of the
Chinese camp has a point to prove it is Wang Liqin.
He is the most successful male player in the history of the
ITTF Pro Tour; he has won a total of twenty-three Men’s
Singles titles but has not emerged victorious since September
2006 when he was crowned champion at the Volkswagen Open Japan.
It has been a barren spell of eighteen months for the man
who is also the most successful male player ever at the Qatar
Open. He won the Men’s Singles title in 2005 and 2006
whilst in 2007 he was the runner up to Ma Lin.
Wang Liqin plus those players who have direct entries to
the main draw have two days to prepare for the singles competition;
the highest thirty-two World ranked men and sixteen women
are not required to play on the first two days of competition
which is devoted to the qualification group stage.
The highest World ranked male players on view on the first
day of competition are Kim Jung Hoon and Yoon Jae Young of
Korea and both gave ample evidence in the recently completed
Salwa Cup Kuwait Open that they can compete with the very
best.
Kim Joon Hoon beat Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, ranked
sixteen in the World, before losing to Vladimir Samsonov but
not before he had caused the champion elect a host of problems;
he won the first two games before the fluent style of the
three times European champion assumed control.
Similarly, Yoon Jae Young showed his pedigree in Kuwait;
he reached his first ever Men’s Singles semi-final on
the ITTF Pro Tour losing to China’s Chen Qi by the very
narrowest of seven game margins, beating both colleague Ryu
Seung Min, the reigning Olympic champion and Denmark’s
Michael Maze, a bronze medallist in the 2005 Volkswagen 48th
World Championships, en route.
Similarly, there are star names on duty in the qualification
stage of the Women’s Singles event in Qatar; notably
Croatia’s Tamara Boros and Wang Chen of the United States;
both have won Women’s Singles crowns on the ITTF Pro
Tour and will be seeking to revive former glories.
Play starts at 10.00am on Tuesday 18th March 2008 in the
splendid environment of the Qatar Sports Club.
|
"Source:
ITTF Press Release