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Diary WC Dortmund 2012 - Experienced or heard
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07.05.2012 08:17 -
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Saturday, March 24th
The day before the beginning of WC. It is the most difficult day for the organizers, majority of teams arrive, everything has to run smoothly - if the first impression is positive it usually remains so, a big problem is if the first impression is not positive, then a passing grade for the whole event can hardly be expected.
Prior to last WC in Dortmund, Germany was WC in Bremen in 2006. To this very day many remember long waiting times at accreditation center, some Federations, especially from Africa, are still angry regarding their problems with visas. So, in Bremen, all the following good organization was partly overshadowed by the initial problems. In Dortmund it was obvious that the organizers have learned from previous omissions - transport from airport, accreditation, accommodation were fast, without problems. All teams which needed visas praised the fact that they got visas on time and free of charge. In the following days the organizers got a lot of acknowledgment too.
One day before the start of WC three top European teams playing in Champions division reported that their respective top player can not play. Tiago Apolonia, No. 1 from Portugal was injured, Portugal had no adequate substitution for him. For Slovenia it was even worse, as their by far best player Bojan Tokic, who is more than half of the team, had to quit due to overwork, he played from the beginning of the season without a pause - for national team, for his Bundesliga team in German league, in German Cup, in Champions league, in many Pro-Tours, in European Championships and more! Even for professional players it is past bearing! Croatia came without Chinese Tan Ruiwu, who is eligible for Croatia - with him, Primorac and Gacina Croatia would be a team open for some surprises. The Chinese Tan did not come to Dortmund due to an unusual reason. Boss and owner of his club in Zagreb, who is at the same time vice-president of Croatian Federation, has forbidden him to fly to Dortmund explaining that the club has to play 5 days after Dortmund an important match, finals of Middle European League. This is an unofficial event in which clubs from Slovenia, Austria, Slovak Republic, Czechia, Croatia play mostly with young players who should get some international experience in this way. Club chief threatened his player with high penalty if he went without permission to Dortmund! In spite of many critiques in the press and on TV nothing changed, the boss even remained vice-president of the Federation. Other countries, other habits.
Sunday, March 25th
The tournament started, in spite of fine weather many spectators watched the first round! On first day they are already dramatic matches, surprising results, Portugal without their best player manages to win against Singapore and Serbia!
In women competition it sounds like a sensation that two teams from Arab peninsula are present - Qatar and Bahrain play in Dortmund not only with men teams but for the first time with women teams too. Other countries from Arab peninsula lead by extremely conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia are not yet present with women teams, it will take quite some time before it happens.
In connection with this the Qatar story must be remembered. In 1997 for the first time Pro-tour tournament in Qatar was played, but that time only men played, women tournament was not allowed! It was first and last time that ITTF allowed splitting of men and women tournament, women Pro-tour was played in Beirut, Lebanon. ITTF stated afterwards that Pro-tour tournaments must be played with men and women singles and doubles without exception. Qatar accepted this condition, at that time it was almost a sensation. Bahrain started at the beginning of new century with women table tennis in their own country, a Bahrain princess did a lot to promote it. From Qatar it was reported that a Chinese woman works as coach with their women team, but at the moment there are not many women playing table tennis. Women sport is not in the same sport federation with men sport, there is a separate women sport federation! There is a plan to promote intensively table tennis for women, adequate financial means are at disposal. In women table tennis there is money available for about dozen coaches, only players are missing!
In ETTU there are problems with federations from Albania, Andora, Armenia, Serbia, Turkey, which did not pay their yearly contribution to ETTU, it was even considered to suspend these federations. It is amazing as one of ETTU vice-presidents is from Serbia and Turkey is organizer of many big international events?!
Monday, March 26th
European Table Tennis Union decided on their Congress to change the system of playing for Europe Top 12 tournament. Important change is that 3 best Under 21 boys and girls will be invited to participate. ETTU would obviously like to avoid that Europe top 12 becomes almost a veteran's tournament, as it more and more recently the case was. Fresh blood for Europe Top 12 is of course to be greeted. For Europe it would be much better if young players qualified for the tournament due to their results and not to their age!
In men team competition there was a completely unexpected defeat of Japan against Poland. It remained the only win of Poland in the group matches! In women competition there were quite strange matches as for example between teams of Denmark and Congo Brazzaville. In first match Skov (Denmark) won, in second match Jacobsen (Denmark) won with walk over, then Agerholm (Denmark) lost her match and Skov won her following match with walk over. The official result of the match was 3.1 for Denmark against Congo Brazzaville, but in reality only two matches were played, the result was 1:1 and Jacobsen from Denmark did not play a single point in this match!!
In the men team match Serbia against Spain Karakasevic from Serbia attracted attention of spectators. He played against 50 years old He Zhiwen, who 25 years ago was playing for China world champion's team! Some people remembered this match played on World Championships in 1997 in Manchester - Karakasevic produced there the biggest surprise and launched after a brilliant game one of his biggest wins - in first round he won against Olympia gold medallist Guo Liang, who now in Dortmund was Chinese men head coach. In second round Karakasevic had to play against He Zhiwen, who plays the same style as Liu Guoliang did - penholder with pimples out rubber, but not as good! After the show in the first round Karakasevic was considered as big favourite, but in no time he lost 3:0! After so many years both He Zhiwen and Karakasevic still play for they national teams and were about to play each against other a deciding match for their team. It was a very close game, He Zhiwen was 2:0 ahead, had a match ball, lost after that even the 4th and 5th set with 12:10. During the match Karakasevic after missing a ball cursed all the time in his native tongue. Suddenly came the referee and warned him to stop cursing. Karakasevic asked him how does he knows that he is cursing, referee explained him that some spectators translated him what he was shouting. Karakasevic had immediately an answer - he told the referee that spectators were not official interpreters and he does not want to be bothered with such versions. Shortly afterwards Karakasevic cursed again, turned around to the spectators and said - "When Nole (his world famous countrymen, tennis star Djokovic) is cursing spectators are clashing, when I do it immediately the referee will appear!" The spectators did have an answer too - "Play as Nole does, we will clash even when you curse!"
In the morning there was Annual meeting of Swaythling Club International. - it is a club of former national team players which participated in World Championships. SCI takes care of humanitarian help to players in need, and take care of official veteran's championships. In 2012 there will be in Stockholm Veteran World Championships, 3.200 veterans from 65 countries already signed in, 300 are on waiting list! From 2016 there will be a new age category over 90 - in connection with this former vice-world champion Eberhard Schoeler said that according to scientific prognosis in Germany in 2045 more than 2 million people will be over 100 years of age, so it seems the future of veteran table tennis is secured!
Concerning the veterans it was said for fun that many European players have lost their way and came to Dortmund instead to Stockholm to veterans championships! In Dortmund many players over 40 had leading roles in their teams and were eligible to play in veterans tournaments, like Jorgen Persson, He Zhiwen, Zoran Primorac, Jean M. Saive, Werner Schlager, Kalinikos Kreanga, Alan Bentsen, Evgenij Chtchetinine, Petr Korbel, and this fact is not really speaking in favour of European youngsters!
In women competition there are elder players too, the problem is even bigger as European players from year to year fall down in World ranking list. Before Dortmund in World ranking list among best 50 players was as best "original" European player 32 years old Veronika Pavlovich on 28th place! Among best 50 in the ranking list there are only 13 players from Europe, from them 8 players are former Chinese players, among them is even former Chinese national team player 48 years old Ni Xialian, playing now for Luxemburg.
Wednesday, March 28th
On ITTF Congress it was decided to hold next team WC 2015 in China in city of Souzhu. As always there was discussion about the system of team WC, the question was if it makes sense to hold team WC with more than 150 teams. There are reasons speaking in favour and against. It seems quite improbable that the present system will be changed - only top teams are interested in restricted championships for which teams must qualify, the big majority wants to keep the present system. New is only the attempt to introduce a restriction, only teams which played at continental championships should be allowed to play in WC.
Two new countries, the island state of St. Marteen and African state Tschad became new ITTF members - ITTF has now 217 member associations!
In playing hall 2 in one moment there was quite a seldom picture - on three neighbouring tables three defence players were playing - at the same time there were defenders Lasan from Slovenia, Gionis from Greece on duty for their men teams and Bilenko for Belarus for her women team. It was a picture as in ancient table tennis times.
Spectators did not accept well the new rituals introduced by umpires before each match. Rigorous racket controls are implemented before matches in separate rooms. Before the match umpires checked on the table in an almost funny looking procedure only if the surface of the racket is even and if the rubber is ITTF approved - some umpires had even to search if the rubber was approved in big lists with approved rubbers.
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On agenda of ITTF Board of Directors many important issues were discussed. It was foreseen that new plastic balls will replace celluloid balls from 1.9.2013, but BoD became aware of the fact that the time for change is too short, there would be too many problems. So plastic balls will be introduced on 1.9.2014 and nobody can be really sure that this date will in fact be respected. Anyway in two years or little bit later celluloid balls will disappear. In industry generally celluloid is an obsolete raw material, used nowadays only for table tennis ball production. So it is quite understandable to plan to exchange celluloid with modern plastic material. The problem is that the plastic balls, which are produced with a new technology are not sufficiently tested, not all problems of mass production have been already solved. Manufacturers confessed that they are not able to produce until 1.9.2013 sufficient quantities of plastic balls - they could produce until that date some 6-8 millions balls, only Europe would need some 15-20 millions! Besides new test procedure for approval of new balls must be developed!
ITTF has to hire attorneys in USA and fight to forbid an American association to organize a tournament under the name "Ping-Pong World Championships" !
Professional player became active, they elected Vladimir Samsonov as their representative in ITTF, try now to get more rights to speak in decision making in matters directly concerning the players. Their first proposal was to introduce a correction of world ranking list points - they want to minimalize negative points given for losses. Just due to this negative points players often avoid tournaments in order not to risk to loose lot of points losing for example against a very strong young Chinese player who is not at all on the ranking list - such a loss may cause many minus points and sinking on the ranking list for many places. Players want as well better transparency for the racket control, they want scientific research to recheck present border values for approval of rubbers.
Samsonov attended in the morning ITTF BoD meeting to present proposals from players, in the afternoon he did play for Belarus in the first main round. He won his first match against Singapore but in deciding match against Gao Ning he had no chance. In first match Gao Ning and defender Chtschetinine played an extraordinary third set. First set won easily Chtschetinine, Gao Ning started to play much better and won easily the second set. The third set began with dominance of Gao Ning but then Chtschtetinine won point after point with net or edge balls, after 6 such balls in a row he won the set against Gao Ning who became more and more nervous. In fourth set Gao Ning proceeded to play nervously, Chtschetinine was in lead 9:8, but then Gao Ning produced two net balls in a row, won so 4th set and was dominating the fifths.
Friday, March 30th
In quarterfinal men team match Germany against Sweden Timo Boll and Jorgen Persson played each other. Jorgen Persson has already played the 1989 World Championships in Dortmund, won the finals with Sweden against China and lost single finals against his countrymen Waldner. 23 years later he again plays in World Championships, and is with 45 years of age qualified for 2012 Olympic Games, but in the match against Boll it is obvious that his big times are over. Swedish people said that their national NOC will not send automatically each Swedish qualified sportsman to London, they want to be sure that everybody can represent Sweden in a good way. Persson has still not got green light from his NOC, but all do expect that his outstanding career speaks for him and he will be nominated into Swedish Olympic delegation.
On this day most of the teams started to play with their reserve players, as for most of them it was not important any more if they will be placed few places higher or lower, most of teams already roughly knew their position.
Good news is that in this WC umpires were not big theme for discussion. Of course, some umpires did their best to drive players crazy. It was amazing how well young Czech player Obeslo accepted umpires decisions - in a close match one umpire found many of his forehand services illegal and counted them as points for his opponent. Regardless of the question if his service were really illegal it astonished that when he changed the sides and the other umpire controlled his forehand service not a single service was found illegal! So obviously there were two umpires with different criteria, either one was counting services which were not illegal as illegal or the other one did not count illegal services as illegal! The third possibility that Obeslo served on one side correct services on the other illegal seems to be quite improbably. Anyway Obeslo proved that he has good nerves as at the end he managed to win the close game!
Saturday, March 31st
The match between men teams Denmark against France for final placement was something not seen ever before. Denmark played with "grandfather" Alan Bentsen and his kindergarten as Danish sport director Peter Sartz said, France with current European boys champion Flore and his predecessor Robinot. In first match European veteran champion over 40 Bentsen played against European boys champion Flore. Experienced Bentsen won with his tactics first set but from second set after Flore got adapted to Bentsen game it became a one way match in favour of Flore. But the devil sleeps never - Bentsen played his second match against the former European boys champion Robinot and Robinot was literally crashed by Bentsen!
In the matches between world top players mostly less attractive matches were presented then in middle classes. The top players, specially Chinese players, succeed to decide the point in one or two rallies, there is no long waiting and so they are seldom longer, for spectators attractive rallies. For example, in semi-final match Germany against Japan two world top players Ovcharov and Mizutani have in one set from score 9:9 up to score 13:13 in all 8 points finished the rally with one or two shots. The spectators watched the match enthusiastically, they did not miss attractive rallies because the match was close - but is it enough for the future of the game?
Sunday, April 1st
Westfallen hall was again sold out. Compared with last Team World Championships 2010 in Moscow it was fantastic - in Moscow there was too a big, modern hall, but there were not many spectators, in reality it was for table tennis depressive atmosphere. Good news is that next Individual World Championships 2013 will be in Paris, there Bercy hall will be just as full as it was Westfallen Halle in Dortmund.
Former German TT Association vice-president Klaus Meier told us that in Germany they try hard to attract spectators to come to table tennis events. First of all it must be said that according to polling some 90% (!!) spectators visiting table tennis events are in some way connected with table tennis - they are either players or their family members, friends. Secondly, there are lots of efforts to attract the spectators to visit table tennis events. German Table Tennis Marketing comp. collected with help of lotteries and such games more than 20.000 different table tennis addresses and they send on a regular basis out offers for table tennis events and make adequate promotion in table tennis circles.
Germany did not make it, China remained on the throne, and in women teams Singapore did not succeed to repeat their sensational win against China in Moscow. China plays in men and women table tennis quite another league than all other countries.
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