This year, from May 1 to 11, the WTT Saudi Grand Slam will be held. This is the second Grand Slam tournament held by the World Table Tennis Federation this year. There are 29 days left before the curtain is left.
There are five individual events in the Grand Slam tournament, which are men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles.
The World Table Tennis Federation announced the singles list on its official website.
Judging by the list, the world's high-level players have come to participate. Of course, there is still a limit to the number of places in each association. Each association can only have 6 players. There are players who are ranked high in the world but are not allowed to participate due to quota restrictions.
Let's look at the men's singles list first. There are 50 players on the main list.
The national table tennis has Wang Chuqin (world No. 1), Fan Zhendong (No. 2), Liang Jingkun (No. 3), Ma Long (No. 4), Lin Gaoyuan (No. 7), Lin Shidong (No. 13) and other 6 people participated. Zhou Qihao, who ranked 24th, and Xiang Peng, who ranked 36th, were not eligible to participate.
Han table tennis has Jang Woo-jin (12), Lim Zhongxun (21), Lee Sang-so (29), Cho Dae-sung (44), Ahn Jae-hyun (45), Oh Hyun-sung (46) and other 6 people participated. Zhao Shengmin, ranked 51st, did not participate in the competition.
The other players in the main draw are F. Lebrun, Lin Yunru, Victor Hugo, Tomokazu Zhangmoto, Qiu Dang, Ocharov, Karpog, Darko, Francesca, Assal, Marcos Ferritas, Aruna, Moregaard, A. Lebrun, Falke, Hayasuke Togami, Bol, Pitchford, Gross, Simon Goetz, Ko Chengrui, Linde, Zhuang Zhiyuan, Matsushima Terukor, Sharat Kamal Achanta, Kirill Gerasimenko, Carlsen, Lim Boon Zheng, Li Yuanzhang and Aditya Sareen, Duda, Huang Zhenting, Philus, Puka, Ionescu, Yoshimura Maharu, Nicholas, Daniel Habesson, etc.
A further 58 players competed in the Women's Singles qualifying tournament.
Let's look at the list again. There are also 50 people on the main competition roster.
The national table tennis has Sun Yingsha (ranked 1st in the world), Wang Manyu (2nd), Wang Yidi (3rd), Chen Meng (4th), Chen Xingtong (5th), and Qian Tianyi (21st) on the list. There are still 6 Chinese women's table tennis players. Qian Tianyi, who has fallen sharply in the world rankings, still has a chance to participate. This time she's going to take her chance. If she still doesn't get a good ranking this time, causing the world ranking to continue to fall, there will be fewer and fewer opportunities to compete in the future.
Kuo Man, ranked 22nd, He Zhuojia, ranked 41st, Li Yake, ranked 43rd, Shi Xunyao, ranked 44th, Chen Yi, ranked 53rd, and Zhang Rui, ranked 56th, did not have the opportunity to participate.
In addition, the German player Han Ying, who is ranked 15th, and the Japanese player Mori Sakura, who is ranked 47th, are also not on the list.
Other selected players are Hina Hayata, Shin Yubin, Mimato Ito, Szokos, Diaz, Zheng Yijing, Miwa Zhangmoto, Tian Zhixi, Mittram, Miu Hirano, Yang Xiaoxin, Bruna Takahashi, Zhu Qianxi, Yuan Jianan, Nagasaki Miyu, Liu Yangzi, Pavard, Meshef, Gundam, Polkanova, Kim Naying, Kihara Miyu, Zhang An, Xu Xiaoyuan, Linda, Wang Amy, Olawan, Shan Xiaona, Samara, Batra, Chen Siyu, Akula, Ni Xialian, Li Shiwen, Du Kaiqin, Diaconu, Natalia, Zhu Chengzhu, Winter, Hong Jianfang, Andreea Dragoman, Xiao Yaoqian, Sutasini Savitabut, Li Yuzhen and others.
There were 58 players in the Women's Singles qualifying tournament.
The Saudi Grand Slam has great rewards. The player who wins the singles championship can get 2,000 points and a prize of 65,000 US dollars (equivalent to 470,000 yuan). The runner-up is awarded 1,400 points, as well as a $33,050 prize.
With such a generous reward, the players are naturally willing to participate.