May 2022 has arrived, and the ITTF and the World Table Tennis Federation have announced the latest schedules on their official websites. According to the arrangement, six international competitions will be held this month, of which 4 will be youth events and the other 2 will be regular WTT side challenges in the United States (in Fremont and Westchester, respectively), but the Chinese team has all abandoned the competition, and Ito has withdrawn shortly after registration.
But even so, the 2 world champions Falk and Zhuang Zhiyuan are still on the list, and Yukiya Utada, Zheng Yijing and other foreign association masters will also participate, which is worth paying attention to! See below for details.
In April 2022, the international table tennis world was calm, and only one youth event was arranged. After the arrival of May, the number of competitions gradually increased, with the WTT Fremont And WTT Westchester races being the most noteworthy, with the time from 5 to 8 and 11 to 15 respectively.
Affected by the epidemic, the national table tennis is now trying not to leave the country to create trouble for the country, and it is still standing still, and no one has signed up for this competition held in the United States. And objectively speaking, the specifications of the WTT regional competition are indeed not high, and it is not possible to risk being infected to participate.
However, due to the recent competitions, athletes from foreign associations still hope to seize the opportunity to exercise. According to the arrangement, world champions Falk and Zhuang Zhiyuan became the top 2 seeds in the men's singles of the Fremont Tournament, and Zhuang Zhiyuan and Yukiya Umada were the top 2 seeds of the men's singles in Westchester.
As for chinese Taipei's Zheng Yijing and Chen Siyu, they are firmly on the throne of the top 2 seeds in women's singles, these athletes have the ability to impact the main force of national table tennis, so their duel is still worth watching.
It is worth mentioning that Ito originally signed up for the mixed doubles event of the 2 American Races, and the partner was Yukiya Utada, but he later withdrew. Due to the registration restrictions for higher-ranked athletes in the WTT regional competition, it is impossible for world No. 4 Ito to participate in singles, so it may be even withdrawn with mixed doubles.
But since Ito has the heart to return to the mixed doubles field, it means that it may compete with the national table tennis again at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and the Chinese team must be guarded again!
As mentioned earlier, in addition to the two WTT regional competitions, the ITTF also arranged four youth tournaments, which were held in Austria, Poland, Germany and Spain. However, now that the older underage athletes have participated in adult competitions, it is difficult for the remaining rising stars to affect the world table tennis landscape.
At present, the Chinese table tennis team has not announced the arrangements for the team's direct competition, selection competition and simulation competition, so when everyone will be able to return to the field is still unknown, or let's sit together and wait for the latest news to come back!