The Euro Top-16...

[AJ Scott]

This started Thursday and will go on through tomorrow (Sunday):
https://www.ettu.org/europe-top-16/.  It's being held at the usual
place--Montreux, Switzerland--which is 6 hrs. ahead of us.  As for
livestreaming, that is happening on the ETTU TV page, here:
https://www.ettu.tv/home.  At the moment, all that's there are links to
the livestreams for the semifinals tomorrow morning.  So, if you want to
watch some or all of the matches from the previous rounds, then go to
the ETTU YouTube page, here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHIe8E2_SQplR_SzH9gLurg/videos?theme=dark.
At present, all the matches are there, so you'll have to scroll down 6
rows to get to the first round matches which are from the round-of-16.

The top 5 men's seeds are Truls Moregard, Alexis Lebrun, Felix Lebrun,
Darko Jorgic, and Benedikt Duda.  The top 5 women's seeds are Sabine
Winter, Sofia Polcanova, Bernadette Szocs, Han Ying and Yuan Jianan. 
Right off the bat, you can see that they're using ETTU rankings as
opposed to ITTF rankings.  For example, in the ITTF, Felix Lebrun is
above his older brother Alexis.  Anyhow, here's the full seeding list:
https://storage.googleapis.com/stupaprodsguscentral/ettu-website-wordpress/2026/02/2026CCBEuropeTop16_SeedingList.pdf

Penholders...  It's the top-2 in the world--Felix Lebrun and Dang Qiu.

Pip-out/anti-spin players...  They're all on the women's side--Sabine
Winter (anti-spin/bh), Han Ying (chopper), Yuan Jianan (short pips-fh),
Linda Bergstrom (chopper), Yu Fu (short pips/bh?), and Shan Xiaona
(short pips/fh).

If I remember correctly, Alexis Lebrun and Han Ying are the defending
champions.  It'll be interesting to see if they can "repeat" this weekend.