Some time ago, the International Table Tennis Federation and the World Table Tennis Federation announced the latest schedule on their official websites. According to the schedule, two events will be held in the United States in May, and the first event, WTT Ferrimont, will start in the early morning of May 6, Beijing time.
The two WTT events held in the United States are registered for the national table tennis, because the event points are very low, so the national table tennis really does not need to risk being infected and cross the ocean to participate, it is better to stay in the country for training. But because there have been very few recent events, many athletes from outside the association still want to seize the opportunity to exercise.
The competition also attracted some high-level athletes to participate, such as Zhuang Zhiyuan, Zheng Yijing and Chen Siyu of the Chinese Taipei team, Yukiya Utada and Hayabusa Tokami of the Japanese team, Shin Yubin of the South Korean team and the host of the United States, Kanek and Zhang An.
In the past, international competitions were based on the world ranking on the registration deadline to determine the seed order, so the original men's singles and women's singles top two seeds in the tournament were Fark, Zhuang Zhiyuan and Zheng Yijing and Chen Siyu, but this time there was an exception, and the order of everyone was temporarily changed before the start of the tournament. As for the reason, it is probably because the ITTF recently revised the rules of the world ranking.
Previously, due to the transition period required by the introduction of the new points mechanism, coupled with the epidemic, the ITTF added a fixed number of points to the sum of the highest points in the eight stations, with an initial value of 80% of the total points of the players in December 2020. Given that 2021 and 2022 have provided players with ample opportunities to earn ranking points, the ITTF has decided to abolish the "initial points". Therefore, the latest edition of the world ranking has changed a lot, which has also made the order of seeds in this tournament change greatly.
Falke and Zheng Yijing, who were originally the number one seeds, were "greatly hit", and the two became the men's singles No. 5 seed and the women's singles No. 3 seed, respectively. The reason why the International Table Tennis Federation is in a hurry to use the new points rule is that it also wants to hit the iron while it is hot, so that everyone can adapt to this system as soon as possible.
The top two seeds in the men's and women's singles in the latest tournament are Zhuang Zhiyuan, Yukiya Utada and Shin Yubin and Chen Siyu. Zhuang Zhiyuan was promoted to the No. 1 seed, and originally would not have met Fark before the final, but now the two are likely to meet in advance. The new ranking system has helped Shen Yubin a lot, and she suddenly got a good signature from the top four seeds, and she can avoid several strong opponents in the early stage.
But no matter how the signing position changes, if you want to win the championship, strength is still the most important. Although the national table tennis did not participate, the final result is still worth looking forward to!