WTT Star Contender Muscat 2025...

[AJ Scott]

This starts late, late tonight, after midnight at 2 am and goes on
through Saturday:
https://www.worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Matches&eventId=3176&innerselectedTab=Scheduled
[Qualifications schedule].  The 1st 2 days are qualis and then the main
draw starts on Wednesday.  When looking at the schedule, remember that
Oman is 9 hrs. ahead of us.  There's 2 tables in play for the qualis and
then, in then, in the main draw, that will increase to 4 tables.  All
matches will be livestreamed on the WTT YouTube page at
https://www.youtube.com/@WTTGlobal/streams.

Player list:
https://www.worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Player%20List&eventId=3176&innerselectedTab=Scheduled.
As you will see, the top 10 men's seeds are Felix Lebrun, Dang Qiu,
Darko Jorgic, Alexis Lebrun, Lin Yun-ju, Jang Woo-jin, Simon Gauzy, Oh
Jun-sung, Uda Yukiya and Quadri Aruna, the King of Africa.  The top 10
women's seeds are Hayata Hina, Ohdo Satsuki, Nagasaki Miyu, Cheng
I-ching, Bernadette Szocs, Joo Cheonhui, Kihara Miyuu, Elizabeta Samara,
Yuan Jianan, and Liu Yangzi of Oz.  As you probably have heard, there is
a points race to qualify for the WTT Finals in HK next month and this is
the last event to earn points towards that event.  Here's an article on
that: https://www.worldtabletennis.com/description?artId=5632

Penholders...  On the men's side, it's the top 2 seeds, Felix Lebrun &
Dang Qiu.  On the women's side, it's Yu Fu of Portugal.

Pips-out/anti-spin players...  As for the men, the only one I recognize
is Luka Mladenovic of Luxembourg.  For the women, it's just a few more:
Kihara Miyuu (short pips/bh), Yuan Jianan (short pips/fh), Liu Yangzi
(short pips/bh), Satoh Hitomi (chopper), Yu Fu (short pips/bh?),
Sutirtha Mukherjee (short pips/fh) and Poymantee Baisya of India (short
pips or anti/bh? She stands close to the table and mainly chops with the
bh).  Which reminds me that I also wanted to mention Aida Satoshi of
Japan who, though he doesn't play with pips/anti, is a chopper
nonetheless. He's paired up with Satoh Hitomi in the Mixed Doubles this
week. They play their 1st match Tuesday morning vs. Manav
Thakkar/Swastika Ghosh of India.  I think they have a good chance to win
that one and get out of qualis.  And, in the Men's Doubles, he'll pair
up with the current top chopblocker in the world, the aforementioned
Luka Mladenovic, on Tuesday morning also.  Hmm, that could be interesting...

As for the TT schedule going forward, the next big event will be the
ITTF World Youth Championships which begin next Sunday in Romania, then
on Monday you'll have the first of 2 Feeder events, WTT Feeder
Duesseldorf 2, then WTT Feeder Parma on the 29th, then, on the 30th,
it'll be the ITTF Mixed Team World Cup in Chengdu, China (I hope more
top players play this time around because I really like this event),
then after that, starting Dec. 10, it'll be the season-ending WTT Finals
in Hong Kong.