August 2017 Table Tennis news bites

Africa's star Table Tennis player, Aruna Quadri has appealed to the Nigerian government to provide a strong coach to help him perform at the Table Tennis world cup to be held at Liège, Belgium. Earlier, Nigeria's Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, had promised to support Quadri for the World Cup. Aruna was one of the stars of a previous World cup tournament.

Sun Yingsha aims to win the Grand slam of Table tennis. The Grand slam in Table tennis for Chinese players is the Olympic, World, World Cup, and National Games titles.

Ding Ning's idol is Zhang Yining, the Legend of Table Tennis and one of the all time greats.

London will host the The ITTF Team World Cup from 22 to 25 February, 2018. ITTF, the Table Tennis world governing body announced this recently. The tournament will be held at the Copper Box Arena at London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The tournament was held at Dubai in 2015.

The 2018 ITTF Team World Cup will be hosted in London on 22-25 February 2018. The world table tennis governing body ITTF's President Thomas Weikart recently announced this. Table Tennis England Chairman Sandra Deaton was overjoyed after hearing this announcement and expressed her excitement.

Anthony Amalraj to be given Arjuna award

A Amalraj, who won the 2012 Indian National Championships, will be rewarded with the Arjuna Award for his accomplishments in his career. Amalraj has performed consistently from around 2010 at the international level and this news comes at around the right time.

Other International achievements by Amalraj are as follows:

Winner of Men's doubles silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow (partnering A Sharath Kamal). Winner of Bronze medals in team and mixed doubles at the 2010 Commonwealth games.

Winner of Gold medal in the Commonwealth Championships in 2015. Also, silver in men's singles and bronze in men's doubles. In the 2013 edition, he won a silver in the team event.

Photo courtesy of the ITTF.

Tomokazu Harimoto beats Timo Boll to create history at Czech open Table tennis tournament

Tomokazu Harimoto beat Timo Boll 11-3, 4-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-9 in the finals of the Czech open World Tour Table tennis tournament.

With this win at Olomouc, the Japanese prodigy became the youngest every player to win a World Tour (formerly Pro tour) tournament. Harimoto has already proved that he is a top player. He was ranked No. 18 recently. It is no surprise that the kid is unstoppable because his sights are set on the Olympic Games podium. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 will be held at Harimoto's home country. Although he needs a lot of big Championships experience, you never know with this courageous boy.

India in top 16 World Table Tennis teams

World no. 15! As a country, the Indian men's team is now inching towards the cream of World Table Tennis. After many many years, we are now in the top 16 countries! The Women's team is ranked no. 23.

The significance of a high ranking is that it can ensure automatic qualification in future World Team Championships if the players keep climbing.

India has had great performances right from the early decades of the last century. As a team, one of the noteworthy, world class performances was at the 1985 World Championships at Gothenburg, where India finished 12th.

Editor

www.TableTennisBug.com

(Photos courtesy of the ITTF and from Firstpost)

Top India Women Table Tennis players by World Ranking

The following are the top ranked Indian Women Table Tennis players by World Ranking:

Manika Batra is just out of the top 100. Mouma Das, Ayhika Mukherjee, and Madhurika Patkar follow next. Interestingly, Junior player Archana Kamath, is fifth in this list.

Top India Table Tennis players by World Ranking

The following are the top ranked Indian Men Table Tennis players by World Ranking:

India's pride, Achanta Sharath Kamal is 1st, followed by Harmeet Desai, Soumyajit Ghosh, and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran. Incidentally, this is the first time in recent decades that four Indian players feature in the top 100.

Pooja, Sathiyan win Inter Institutional Table Tennis Championships 2017

Pooja Sahasrabudhe Koparkar beat Madhurikaa Paatkar Torgalkar 4-0 in the Women's singles finals at the All India Inter Institutional Table Tennis Championships. 

In the Men's final match, in form Sathiyan Gnanasekaran beat Harmeet Desai in straight games.

Pictures courtesy of the ITTF.