Ma Lin selfie

Ma Lin takes a selfie. Wang Hao watches curiously.

Photo at sports.sohu.com

Sharath Kamal off to a good start at World Cup Table Tennis 2013

Sharath Kamal is in elite company at the World Cup in Belgium. His competitors include the likes of Xu Xin, Timo Boll, Ovtcharov, Samsonov, among a host of others.

In a Stage 1 match, Sharath snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Australian legend William Henzell 12-14, 10-12, 9-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-3, 12-10. Henzell was the youngest inductee into Australia's Hall of Fame at age 26, at that time, 20 years younger than any other inductee.

Sharath now plays Hong Kong's Tang Peng in a crucial match that will most likely decides who advances to the Stage 2, that has the World's top players waiting. It is worth noting that Sharath Kamal is the first Indian to qualify for this elite championships whose past winners include Waldner, Persson, Kong Linghui, Liu Guoliang, Vladimir Samsonov, Ma Lin, Wang Hao (王皓), Timo Boll and Zhang Jike.

Editor
www.TableTennisBug.com

Chinese Table Tennis team trials for Paris World Championships

The final leg of the Chinese team trials are starting. The favorites to qualify are Zhang Jike, Ma Long, and Xu Xin. But Jike suffered an injury recently.

The other experienced players in the fray are Ma Lin, Chen Qi, and Wang Hao.

The youngsters who will challenge experience are Yan An and Fan Zhendong.

Ma Lin Before and After, sheds kilos to become killer again

Ma Lin was losing matches, was out of the Olympic Table Tennis team. He told his coach that he will drop 11 Kgs, when his coach was happy with 4 Kgs.
Ma Lin skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner sometimes and attended sauna sessions.
The result? He is back in form, even beating Xu Xin, World No. 3 and ITTF Grand Final winner. Actions matter, not just words!

Killerspin Table Tennis Festival

Killerspin is conducting an amazing event as a part of it's 10th anniversary. Leading Olympic and World Champions will participate in the event to be held at Chicago's beautiful landmarks.
Tickets are available here:
http://tabletennisfestival.eventbrite.com/

INVITED PLAYERS

Table Tennis Champion and International Star BiBa will be joined by US Champions Ilija Lupulesku and 16 year old phenom Ariel; World and Olympic Champions Zhang Jike, Wang Liqin, Chen Qi, Ma Lin and Ding Ning from China. Olympic Champion Ryu Seung Min and other champions from Korea, Europe and Brazil will also be competing.

INVITED PLAYERS — MEN'S TEAMS

• Chen Qi, Zhang Jike,
• Wang Liqin, Wang Hao or Ma Lin
• Kalinikos Kreanga, Bojan Tocik
• Ryu Sean Min, Kim Min Seok

INVITED PLAYERS — WOMEN'S TEAMS

• Ding Ning, BiBa
• Ariel Hsing, Jessica Yamada

INVITED PLAYERS — MEN'S TEAMS — MASTERS Master's Team 1 — Jorgen Persson, Chen Weixing

Master's Team 2 — Zoran Primorac, Aleksandar Karakasevic

ADDITIONAL INVITED PLAYERS

• Ilija Lupulesku
• Juniors — Michael Tran, Este, TBD

Zhang Jike, Wang Hao, Ma Long or Xu Xin?

China is now in a very strange situation. They had to name 3 players for the London Olympics and after a HUGE selection process spanning more than a year, they chose World Champion Zhang Jike, Wang Hao for singles and Ma Long in addition to these two for the team events.

Now suddenly, Xu Xin, who is not even in the core team has burst into such terrific form, just losing the Korean Pro Tour by a hair's breadth (where he had a match point) and winning the China Open beating Zhang Jike and Ma Long comprehensively, thus leaving the Chinese TT management utterly confused. Remember, Table Tennis is high pressure there and their players are as famous in their country as our Cricket players. Ma Lin has fame that can rival Sachin. Any solutions?

Editor,
www.TableTennisBug.com

Joo Se Hyuk beats World Champion Zhang Jike

Defender Joo Se Hyuk sent shock waves down the Chinese team's spine by beating Zhang Jike in straight sets in the Olympic year at the Hungarian Open Table Tennis World Tour Tournament. Just when the team was grappling with the possibility of not being able to field veterans Ma Lin and Wang Liqin at the Olympics, Jike is giving some sleepless nights to the team management.

Joo won 11-5,11-7,11-7,11-4.

Ma Lin continued his slide by losing to Xu Xin in straight sets. Ma Long survived a huge onslaught by Chen Qi and won in extra points in the decider. 
In the Quarter affected by the withdrawal of Wang Hao, Adrian Crisan of Romania made the most of it by beating Chen Weixing to advance to a rare semi-final at this level. He faces Joo, who will not let such an opportunity of reaching the finals slip by.

Sharath gives Ma Lin a scare

Indian Table Tennis ace, A Sharath Kamal gave TT legend Ma Lin a run for his money at the Hungarian Open World Tour (formerly called Pro Tour) event.

In the 2nd round of the main draw, Ma Lin prevailed 4-1 (11-4,5-11,11-7,16-14,11-9). Sharath had great chances to equal the match at 2-2 but unfortunately lost the fourth game after an extended duel. 


Earlier, in the first round, Sharath squeaked past England's Paul Drinkhall after being 0-3 down. He eventually won 4-3, in a decider that went all the way to 13-11.

Training to the summit: Ma Lin and Wang Hao climb 100 floors

Climb photo courtesy tabletennista.com and nddaily.com

Many people feel that the Chinese Table Tennis players are dominant and do not understand the hardships they go through. Most of the present day stars including Ma Lin, Wang Liqin, Wang Hao, Zhang Jike, Ma Long and others are already millionaires, but they do not hesitate to put in more and more hard work to reach their goals.

A recent example is the winter training that Liu Guoliang put them through. At Shenzen, Guoliang made Wang Hao and Ma Lin climb one of the tallest buildings - the 100 floor 442 metre high Kingkey tower.

Both the players could not complete the climb in their first attempt, but fiesty as they are, they did it on subsequent attempts and even wore a relaxed smile as they took in the beautiful landscape of Shenzen from the very top.

Ma Lin leads Zhejiang to victory

Ma Lin about to unleash his deadly serve

The toughest competition in Table Tennis on the planet is on.

Zhejiang, led by Olympic Champion, Ma Lin won against Bazhou in the first leg of the Chinese Table Tennis Super League Finals.

Ma Lin lost against the super talented Xu Xin, but Zhejiang scraped through 3-2 by winning the decider when Xu Hui beat Li Ping.

Editor

Ma Lin ousted by Liventsov

Photo is by courtesy of the ITTF

Ma Lin upset by Alexey Liventsov (4-3) 11-5,11-2,7-11,11-9,3-11,9-11,11-7 in the very first round of the main draw in the 2011 Harmony China Open ITTF Pro Tour event. Liventsov is ranked 120 in the world.


What must have really hurt is that he lost to a relatively unknown player in front of his home crowd.

Editor
TableTennisBug.com

2012 London Olympic Games - Defending Champion not allowed to Compete?

Ma Lin, the defending Olympic Champion (Beijing 2008) will not be eligible to even compete if the new rules are enforced. He does not figure in the list of players that have automatically qualified.

A drastic new rule has been drawn to enable countries other than China to win at least a Bronze. Hence, only the top two players from any country can participate. The provisional qualifiers list is available here:
http://portal.ittf.com/stories/pictures/qualifiers.pdf

This list is subject to the National Olympic body's approval, which means that the Chinese Olympic Body must approve. This also means that there will be a huge hue and cry within China regarding the exclusion of Ma Lin, who is as popular a figure in China as Sachin Tendulkar is in India.

Zhang Jike, the newly crowned World Table Tennis Champion is in the provisional list of auto-qualifiers and so is Wang Hao, who will get a golden chance to add to his glorious collection of titles.

Player Profile: India's Star TT Player - Sourav Chakraborty

Sourav is one of India's best ever left handed players. His fearless and effortless style of plays often leaves his opponents panting.
Sourav has made a name for himself not only in the sub continent, but he has also played a stellar role in the club he played for in the middle of the last decade.

Your's truly once saw him demolishing one of the top players in a leading state in ruthless style. It is well known that Sourav single-handedly won the title for PSPB in the recent Nationals even though he was saddled with a personal emergency situation involving his father. The fact that Sourav held the flag high even without practice says a lot about his class.



Name: Sourav Chakraborty

Date of Birth: 01-01-1985

Current India Ranking - 3

Highest India Ranking - 1

Junior World Ranking (2001) -14

PARTICIPATION IN  MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENTS

1. World T.T. Championships in Paris in the years of 2002-2003

2. World T.T. Championships in Shanghai in the years of 2004-2005

3. Asian T.T Championships in Bangkok in the years of 2002-2003

4. Asian T.T Championships in Seoul (South Korea ) in the years of 2004-2005

5. Played Yugoslavian Top League for Red Star Club( Serbia ) in 2004-2005. Created a record of winning all the matches for Red Star Club.

6. World Championships in Yokohama in the year of 2009.

7. India VS England Series - Defeated Paul Drinkhall and Andrew Ruston.

8. Kuwait Open Championship 2009 - Qualified and lost in main draw to Ma Lin.

9. Qatar open Chamiponship 2009 - Qualified and lost in main draw to Wang Hao.

10. China Open 2009 - lost in main draw to Ta Ku( Japan ).

11. Defeated William Henzell (2006, Commonwealth Games silver medalist in mens singles) in the pre-quarter finals at Glasgow in commonwealth championship,2009.

MAJOR  NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

S. No.	Tournament	Place	Year	Medal
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Guwahati	2009-2010	Silver(Singles) Gold(Mens Doubles) Silver(Mixed Doubles) Bronze(Team)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Patna ( Bihar )	2008-2009	Bronze (singles) Bronze (Doubles) Silver (Team)
	Senior national T.T championship	Siliguri ( North Bengal )	2007-2008	Silver (singles) (Doubles) (Team)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Ajmer(Rajasthan)	2006/2007	Silver (Team) Gold (Doubles Men)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Jaipur (Rajasthan)	2005/2006	Silver (Team)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Panvel ( Maharashtra )	2004/2005	Silver (Team) Bronze (Singles)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Maneswar (Haryana)	2003/2004	Silver (Team)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	Pune ( Maharashtra )	2002/2003	Silver (Team) Gold (Men’s Doubles) Gold (Mixed Doubles)
	Senior national T.T. Championship’s	New Delhi	2001-2002	Silver (Singles) Gold (Team)
	Jr. Qatar Open Championship’s	Hyderabad	2001-2002	Gold (Singles Team, Mixed Doubles) Silver (Team)
	World Railway Championship’s	Bangaluru (KNT)	1999-2000	Gold (Singles, Doubles, Team)
	World Railway Championship’s	Indore (M.P)	1998-1999	Gold (Singles, Team)

MAJOR INTERNATIONAL ACHEVEMENTS

S. No.	Tournament	Place	Year	Medal
	Commonwealth Games	U.K. ( Manchester )	2002	Bronze (Team)
	Commonwealth Championship’s	New Delhi	2001/2002	Silver (Team)
	Jr. Asian Championship’s	Hong Kong	2000/2001	Bronze (Team)
	Taiyun Jr. International Championship’s	China	2000/2001	Gold (Singles) Silvers (Doubles) Bronze (Team)
	Hungary World Youth Festival	Hungary	2000/2001	Silver (Singles)
	Hungary World Youth Festival	Hungary	1999/2000	Bronze (Singles)
	South Asian Championship’s	Bangladesh	2000/2001	Gold (Single) Doubles (Team) Doubles (Mixed)
	Jr. Qatar Open Championship’s	Qatar	2000/2001	Gold (Singles)
	World Railway Championship’s	Poland	2001/2002	Gold (singles) Silver (Team) Bronze (Doubles)
	World Railway Championship’s	CzechRepublic	2006/2007	Bronze (Singles) Gold (Doubles)
	Commonwealth Championship’s	Scotland	2009	Silver(team) Quarter-finals(mens singles)