Taiwan’s No. 1 player Chuang Chih-yuan (莊智淵) is to face top international players at a major table tennis event hosted by Greater Kaohsiung starting today.
Organizers of the Men’s Table Tennis Tournament in Kaohsiung, with total prize money of NT$3.13 million (US$105,000), said it is the highest-level table tennis event to be hosted in Taiwan.
Chuang is up against seven of the best international players. The most prominent name is Chuang’s nemesis, Ukraine-born world no. 6 Dimitrij Ovtcharov, who now competes for Germany.
Taiwanese audiences should remember Ovtcharov well, as he defeated Chuang in the table tennis semi-final at the 2012 Olympic Games, and dashed the nation’s hopes of securing an Olympic medal for the first time in men’s singles.
World No. 9 Chuang did Taiwan proud last year when he and partner Chen Chien-an won the men’s doubles world title in Paris, thereby claiming the nation’s first world championship title in table tennis.
The other competitors in Kaohsiung are world No. 13 Jun Mizutani from Japan, world No. 19 Joo Se-hyuk from South Korea, Adrian Crican of Romania (world No. 28) and Jiang Tianyi (world No. 31), who was born in China, but now plays for Hong Kong.
Crican is Chuang’s teammate at the German club SV Werder Bremen in the European Table Tennis Union.
Rounding out the field are former world champions Jurgen Persson of Sweden (world no. 1, 1991 to 1992) and Jean-Michel Saive of Belgium (world no. 1 in 1994 to 1995, and 1996).
“All of them are top players with good skills, so I’m facing very tough competition. My aim is to get into the semi-final, where I may face either Ovtcharov or Mizutani,” Chuang told reporters yesterday.
“I have competed against them in the past. Each one has their individual style. For example, South Korea’s Joo Se-hyuk puts powerful spins on the ball and that was tough for me. Maybe facing Saive will be easier, because at 44 he is older than me,” the 32-year-old Chuan said.
Admission to the tournament at Kaohsiung’s K-Arena is free from today through Sunday.
All games are to be televised on MOD sports network.
The event is sponsored by the Taiwan Styrene Monomer Corporation, which is based in the southern port city.
Barcelona star Lamine Yamal would be motivated by criticism ahead of the Clasico, Barcelona assistant coach Marcus Sorg said yesterday. Teenage winger Yamal has been in the spotlight in the Spanish capital after joking that Real Madrid “steal” and “complain” during an appearance on a social media stream. Champions Barca face Real Madrid today in La Liga at the Santiago Bernabeu, looking for a fifth consecutive win over their rivals. “Lamine is a top player and I think [the criticism] will be motivating for him,” Sorg told a news conference. “I hope we all see him tomorrow [give] the best performance.” The 18-year-old Spain
‘A HISTORIC moment’: ‘I think we all need to take a step back and appreciate Leo Messi is playing in Major League Soccer,’ league commissioner Don Garber said Lionel Messi raised the Golden Boot. He then got Inter Miami started with his head. The Argentine opened the scoring with a diving header in the first half, then capped the scoring in the 96th minute as Inter Miami opened the MLS playoffs with a 3-1 win over Nashville SC in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference best-of-three first-round series on Friday night. Messi and Ian Fray had the assists on Tadeo Allende’s second-half tally for Inter Miami, who now get two chances to advance out of the first round for the first time in Messi’s two-and-a-half-year tenure with the team. Game
‘COMPLETE GAME’: ‘To be honest, I’m not sure about the history, but I’m very happy about what I did today,’ Yamamoto said through a translator after the game Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a World Series game from another era. Sandy Koufax had October outings like this, and so did Orel Hershiser, but those types of performances have vanished in modern baseball. Until this 178cm starter from Japan delivered like the aces of old. Yamamoto threw a four-hitter for his second consecutive complete game, the first in the World Series since 2015, and the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-1 on Saturday night to tie their best-of-seven matchup at one game apiece. “It’s kind of the throwback,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “When he starts a game, he
Japan’s narrow defeat by Australia showed they can compete with the best teams in the world, coach Eddie Jones said after his side fell to a 19-15 loss yesterday. Australia coach Joe Schmidt led the Wallabies for the first time against Eddie Jones, his predecessor and now Japan coach. During Jones’ second tenure as Australia coach, the Wallabies lost seven of nine tests and were eliminated in group play at the 2023 World Cup. “What I’m super pleased about is that now we [Japan] are a team that stays in the fight,” Jones told reporters. “We kept going, we could have won
RSS