Victorious in 2004 in Leipzig and the winner two years later in Bayreuth; the host nation’s Timo Boll will be seeking to maintain the sequence of winning the Men’s Singles title at his home country’s ITTF Pro Tour tournament in even years, when he competes in forthcoming the Erke German Open.
The tournament starts on Wednesday 19th November and concludes on Sunday 23rd November 2008.
Timo Boll is seeded one in the Men’s Singles, in an event where hopes of domestic success are high.
Dimitrij Ovtcharov, undoubtedly the European player to make the most progress in the past 18 months, is seeded two and could well prove to be the greatest threat to Boll’s hopes of gold.
Seeded Players
Chinese Taipei’s Chuan Chih-Yuan is seeded three with Hong Kong’s Cheung Yuk, one place below.
Singapore’s Gao Ning and Japan’s Kan Yo occupy the fifth and sixth seeded spots with Denmark’s Michael Maze seventh and Kan Yo’s colleague, Jun Mizutani listed in eight spot.
Singapore in Depth
The top two seeded places in the Men’s Singles event are occupied by the same nation; in the Women’s Singles it is the top three. Singapore’s Li Jia Wei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yue Gu are seed one, two and three respectively whilst Sun Bei Bei occupies the sixth seeded berth.
Japan’s Ai Fukuhara is seeded four with colleague Haruna Fukuoka at seven; Austria’s Liu Jia at five with host nation hopes resting heavily on the shoulders of Wu Jiaduo. She is seeded eight.
Women’s Team Event
Predictably in the Women’s Team event, Singapore occupies the top seeded spot being able to call on the services of the highest three ranked female players in the tournament. The trio of Li Jia Wei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yue Gu start as hot favourites.
However, there are formidable challengers. Represented by Ai Fukuhara, Haruna Fukuoka and Reiko Hiura, Japan occupies the second seeded spot with Hungary being the third seeds and Italy in fourth place.
European Challenge
Hungary is represented by Krisztina Toth, Georgina Pota and Petra Lovas whilst for Italy the trio comprises Wenling Tan Monfardini, Nikoleta Stefanova and Laura Negrisoli.
Men’s Team Event
Meanwhile, in the Men’s Team event, Chinese Taipei with Chuan Chih-Yuan, Wu Chih-Chi and Chiang Hung-Chieh in action, are the number one seeds followed by Singapore, Germany and the Czech Republic.
Gao Ning, Yang Zi and Ma Liang line up for Singapore whilst for Germany, Christian Suss, Bastian Steger and Zoltan Fejer-Konnerth are the selection of German Men’s Team coach, Richard Prause.
Petr Korbel, Thomas Pavelka and Josef Simoncik complete the Czech Republic line up.
Schedule
Play starts on Wednesday 19th November 2008 at 10.00 am (local time) with the qualification stages of the Men’s and Women’s Singles events followed by the first round of the Women’s Team competition at 4.30pm and the first round of the Men’s Team event at 7.00pm.
Source: www.ittf.com
