On January 12, the first international tournament of table tennis in 2022, the WTT regional event Düsseldorf, will start, with 58-year-old Chinese veteran Ni Xialian becoming the second seed in the women's singles, and another Chinese player Shan Xiaona being the top seed in the women's singles.
Shan Xiaona
The WTT Regional Tournament, a new event launched by the ITTF at the end of 2021, is mainly aimed at allowing low-ranking players to compete, which is the lowest prize money and points in the WTT senior competition. The singles champion of the WTT side event has only 100 world ranking points, compared to the singles championship points of other WTT events, the WTT regular challenge is 400 points, the Star Challenge is 600 points, the WTT Grand Finals is 1500 points, and the WTT Grand Slam event is 2000 points.
Ni Xialian
The first match of the 2022 WTT Regional Event was held in Düsseldorf, Germany, from January 12 to 15, with a total of 28 players in the women's singles, with two Chinese players Ni Xialian and Shan Xiaona leading. Germany's Shan Xiaona is ranked 38th in the world and is the number one seed in the women's singles. Luxembourg's 58-year-old veteran Ni Xialian, ranked 40th in the world, is the second seed. Ni Xialian became the focus of table tennis last year, once defeating Wang Yidi in the women's singles field, which attracted attention, while at the Houston World Table Tennis Championships, Ni Xialian and her teammates defeated the women's doubles podium and became an inspirational model.
There are more than 50 male singles athletes, with the top seed being The 26th-ranked Austrian veteran Robert Gildos and the second seed being The 43rd-ranked German team Duda. In contrast, the doubles competition was cold, with 12 pairs in the men's doubles, only 8 pairs in the women's doubles and 10 pairs in the mixed doubles.