At 15:30 pm Beijing time on May 1, the 2024 WTT Saudi Arabia Grand Slam gave birth to its first victory, and Iran's Alamiyan defeated Belgium's Cedric Nuitik 3-0 in the first round of the men's singles qualifying round and successfully advanced to the second round of the qualifying round. It was the first official match of a Saudi Grand Slam, and Alamiyan also won the opening match of the tournament.
Nuitik
Nuitik and Alamiyan are both left-handers, and arranging this left-left battle as the opening match of the Saudi Grand Slam is still "quite ingenious".
At the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan, the national table tennis men's team once played against the Belgian team, and Fan Zhendong defeated Nuitik 3-0 in a single. At that time, Nuitik's sharp and diverse serve had left a deep impression on Chinese fans.
Alamiyan is the first brother of the Iranian team and has been playing in Ligue 1, so the style of play is basically European. He underwent major hand surgery due to a bizarre injury called "carpal tunnel syndrome", and after recovery, "the forehand is basically unusable". But he has built a set of backhand system for the whole of Taiwan, and he is still playing well and vigorously, which is really admirable for his strong will and superb talent.
Allamiyan
Alamiyan and Nuitik have played each other several times before and are no strangers to each other, with the last meeting between the two being a 3-0 victory for Nuitik.
In the opening match of the Saudi Grand Slam, the two left-handed old friends played very smoothly and fluently, and Alameyan relied on foot movement to support the backhand offensive line of the whole Taiwan when he had no offensive ability on his forehand, which is indeed very rare. In the end, Alamiyan defeated Nuitik 3-0 to win the first Saudi Grand Slam tournament, 11-5, 11-5, 11-3.
In a Women's Singles first-round qualifier that ended a little later, Ukraine's Bratek defeated Belgium's Masat 3-0 (11-9, 11-6, 11-7).
The Belgian team had a bad season, and both men and women will suffer a round together.
It is worth mentioning that in the qualifying tournament of the Saudi Grand Slam, the broadcast signal was not smooth, there was no scorer on the spot, and the live broadcast screen did not provide simultaneous scoring, so the live viewing experience of the qualifying tournament was very bad.
Maybe things will get better after the race.
In addition, the playing field is not the floor glue, but the floor, which has huge elasticity and a super sense of vibration, and the vibration can even be felt in the audience. Players who have the habit of slapping the ball on the ground before serving the ball will not bounce off the ball when it falls to the ground.
Such a venue requires the national table tennis players to fully adapt to it and master the habits as soon as possible.