WTT Star Contender Foz do Iguasu 2025...

[Albert]

This started with the men's qualis today and will go on through Sunday: https://www.worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Matches&innerselectedTab=Scheduled&eventId=3093 [tomorrow's schedule].  When looking at the schedule, pls. remember that Brazil is one hour ahead of us.  There are 4 tables in play and all 4 will be livestreamed at the WTT YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WTTGlobal/streams.  The main draw starts tomorrow at 9 am our time.

Player list: https://www.worldtabletennis.com/eventInfo?selectedTab=Player%20List&eventId=3093&innerselectedTab=Scheduled.  The top 5 men's seeds this week are Hugo Calderano, Benedikt Duda, Dang Qiu, Oh Junsung and Dima Ovtcharov.  The top 5 women's seeds are Harimoto Miwa, Ohdo Satsuki, Cheng I-ching, Hashimoto Honoka and Bruna Takahashi.

Penholders...  The only one I recognize on the men's side is the no. 2 penholder in the world, Dang Qiu of Germany.  As for the women, the only one I recognize is Victoria Strassburger of Brazil.

Pips-out/anti-spin players...  The only one I see on the men's side is Hamilton Yamane of Brazil.  He did not get out of qualis in the singles, but he's still alive in the doubles.  On the women's side, it'll be Hashimoto Honoka (chopper), her former long-time doubles partner Satoh Hitomi (chopper), Manika Batra (long pips/bh), Giulia Takahashi (short pips/bh), Ayhika Mukherjee (anti-spin/bh, short pips/fh), YD Ghorpade (long pips/bh), and Zeng Zhiyeng (chopper).  This week in the mixed doubles, Hashimoto Honoka will team up with Aida Satoshi (英田理志--Ai-da Sato-shi), a rare chopper who does not use pips-out or anti-spin rubber.  The only other chopper in the world that I can think of who's like him is the lefty Stephane Ouaiche of France (last time I saw his name in the ITTF rankings, it was under "Algeria").  I think Aida plays in the MLTT.  It'll be interesting to see how far he and Hashimoto will go in the mixed doubles draw this week.

People to look out for...  I would say the Frenchmen (remember they're the no. 2 men's team in the world), the young Germans--Kay Stumper (pronounced kai SHTOOM-pa) and Andre Bertelsmeier, who might face Hugo Calderano in the 2nd round.  I see Calderano winning that match, but Bertelsmeier might make it interesting.  I would also look out for someone I"ve mentioned before, Leonardo Iizuka of Brazil, and also Rogelio Castro of Mexico and, lastly, anyone from the Chinese Taipei men's team, because they're tough, too.  Oh, and the Indians, too--they've improved lately--on both the men's and women's sides.  Anyway, this should be an interesting week of TT.

Speaking of which, one storyline I'm following is the ranking points on offer this week.  If, for example, Oh Jun-sung of South Korea can make the quarterfinals, he might earn enough points to pass both Jang Woo-jin and An Jae-hyun to become the South Korean no. 1 for the 1st time in his career--just like his father, Oh Sang-eun, who was the long-time South Korean no. 1 in the early 2000s.  Boy, will he be proud if Jun-sung can pull that off this week

Anyhow, the next event after this one is the 2-part series WTT Feeder Spokane which starts next Tuesday.  And the next big event is WTT Champions Yokohama, which starts next Wednesday night (in our time zone).  More on both to follow...

[Albert]

I was looking at this week's ranking update a few days back and I see that, based on his performance at this event, Oh Jun-sung has made history for South Korea and his family.  He has become the South Korean no. 1 for the 1st time in his career--like his father back in the early 2000s.  His father and coach, Oh Sang-eun must be proud. Someone needs to give him a medal as he created a top-10 level player. I have no doubt that Jun-sung will make the top-10 soon.  But his nat'l teammate, An Jae-hyun, is still close to him--just 90 points below him at present.  Jun-sung needs to keep winning to stay ahead of him and Jang Woo-jin.