WTT Feeder Prishtina 2025...

[AJ Scott]

This started 2 days ago with the qualification rounds--the main draw
starts tomorrow morning at around 3:30 am and goes on thru Saturday:
https://worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Matches&innerselectedTab=Scheduled&eventId=3058
[tomorrow's schedule].  When looking at the schedule, remember that
Kosovo is 6 hrs. ahead of us.  There are 4 tables in play and all will
be livestreamed from 3:30 am tomorrow onward at the WTT YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@WTTGlobal/streams [their livestream page].

As this is a "Feeder" event, very few players from the top-50 will be in
attendance this week:
https://worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Player%20List&eventId=3058&innerselectedTab=Scheduled
[players' list].  The top 5 men's seeds are Simon Gauzy, Feng Yi-hsin,
Liao Cheng-ting, Kay Stumper (pronounced "kai-shtoom-pa"), and Chang
Yu-an.  The top-5 women are Yokoi Sakura, her doubles partner this week,
Satoh Hitomi, Natalia Bajor (sounds like the word "buyer"), Lea Rakovac,
and Yeh Yi-tian.

Pips-out/anti-spin players...  On the men's side, the only 2 I recognize
are Ylane Batix (long pips/bh) and Amirreza Abbasi (long pips/bh).  As
for the women, it'll be the no. 2 seed and former top chopper in the
world, Satoh Hitomi (chopper), Audrey Zarif (short pips/fh), Cheng
Pu-syuan (long pips/bh), Guo Jiangshan (long pips/bh), Syndrela Das
(short pips/fh), Zauresh Akasheva (short pips/bh), Wong Hoi Tung (short
pips/bh?), and Peng Yu-han (short pips/fh, medium pips/bh?).  There's a
lot of people playing this week who I don't recognize, so I might have
missed someone.

Americans...  This week it'll be Ma Jinbao, the US no. 2 man, and our
top chopblocker and no. 5 women, Guo Jiangshan.  Ma's playing singles
and men's doubles with Liao Cheng-Ting of Chinese Taipei. He first plays
doubles at 10:30 am on table 4 vs. a French pair, Vincent Picard and
Joe' Seyfried (sounds like "jo-AY say-FREED")--a tough match.  He will
later play his first singles match around 2:30 pm vs. the winner of
Vincent Picard of France ("van-SOWN pea-KAR") & Yokotani Joh of Japan
(横谷晟--sounds almost like "yo-KO-ta-nee JO-oh")--another tough match
regardless of who wins, but I think it's winnable.  Ma is a very
cerebral player that I very much enjoy watching.

As for Guo, she's playing singles and mixed doubles with Alexander
Valuch of Slovakia.  Her 1st doubles match is on table 3 at 3:30 am vs.
a pair from Moldova and her 1st singles match is on table 2 at 5:30 am
vs. the Kazakh no. 2, Zauresh Akasheva.  Both matches are winnable.  Guo
is very fast--she just needs to "modernize" her forehand technique and
get more consistent--right now, she misses too many shots

Who to look out for?  In addition to Guo Jiangshan, my attention will be
on the 2 male chopblockers Ylane Batix of Cameroon (by way of France)
and Amirreza Abbasi of Malta (by way of Iran).  As I've said in the
past, I think Abbasi has the best defensive backhand in the Game right
now.  I'll also be looking at the other pips-out players like Syndrela
Das of India who has a big forehand and Peng Yu-han of Chinese Taipei
who has pips on both sides.

I'll also be looking at the French Men's Team.  They're the top team in
Europe right now and the no. 2 team in the world--after China.  Also,
there's Filip Zeljko of Croatia and Csaba Andras of Hungary

As mentioned above, this event goes on thru Saturday.  Then a lot of the
players will make a bee-line to North Macedonia for WTT Contender Skopje
which starts Monday morning.  More on that to follow