The Chinese challenge got a further boost at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa, scheduled from February 27-March 05, with reigning women’s world champion and world number three Wang Manyu, leading the list of eight wildcards and WTT nominations released by the commercial entity of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF)..
Olympic Champions Ma Long and Chen Meng (China) have already confirmed their participation
Besides Wang, another upcoming star Wang Chuqin, who is the current world number three in the men’s rankings, has also received one of the four WTT nominations.
The 22-year-old won the WTT Cup Finals last year besides three other titles in a short but impressive career. China are a longstanding global superpower in the sport and will now have their all three of their top players in each singles draw participating.
The other two WTT nominations were picked up by German paddler Patrick Franziska in the men’s draw and Monaco’s Xiaoxin Yang in the women’s draw.
Four wildcards, two each in the men’s and women’s singles draws were also handed out. German world number 11 Dang Qiu and Korean world number 18 Jang Woojin picked up the men’s wildcards while exciting Puerto Rican Adriana Diaz and senior Portuguese paddler Fu Yu were handed the wildcards in the women’s singles.
The wildcards and nominations add more muscle to an already top-class field. Besides the reigning Chinese Olympic Champions, the field also boasts of current world number one’s Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha, as well as such exciting talent as Tomakazu Harimoto and Hina Hayata of Japan and Trul Moregard of Sweden.
The Indian challenge will be led by Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnansekaran and Manika Batra.