Acid test for crème de la crème

Indore, January 21, 2016: It will not be business as usual for the crème de la crème of table tennis from six continents—Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and Oceania—that has assembled here for the 2015 ITTF World Junior Circuit Finals.

All 32 paddlers—16 boys and 16 girls—on view here may have won a few titles from among the 30 tournaments, but the three-day finals commencing at the Abhay Prashad here from tomorrow will be a real acid test for them.

In the $36,000 prize money event, with the winner in each category getting $3,800, no player would want to settle anything less than the title and the biggest prize purse—a just reward after a year-long hard work a paddler has put in his fledgling career. Even those finishing 13 and beyond will not go empty handed as they are set to earn $462.50, the least from the competition.

Surprisingly, Slovenia’s Darko Jorgic and Romania’s Adina Diaconu head the lists of boys and girls, respectively, thanks to their consistent performance in the year gone by. Take the case of Jorgic. He competed in three tournaments in Egypt, Serbia and Hungary and won all the three Junior Boys’ singles titles. Adina competed in two at Bahrain and Hungary and won both.

Without a doubt, the Slovenian, whose potent weapon is the powerful backhand, will be the guy to beat and who can do it better than Korea’s An Jaehyun, who along with Romania’s Cristian Pletea or American Zhang Kai, each of whom have two titles. The Korean won the Slovak and Poland events while Pletea picked the first two titles of the year at Bahrain and the Czech Republic, Zhang in Canada and Portugal. Zhang, a powerful right hander, may well be the dark horse here and is a real contender for top honours.

Among two competitors, Qatari Mohammed Abdulhussein secured one ITTF Junior Circuit Boys’ Singles title during the year as did Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto, Brazil’s Isaac Zauli and Egypt’s Youssef Abdel-Aziz.

Closely on the heels of Romanian Adina with two titles each are Hong Kong’s Zhu Chengzhu, Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi, the winner of World Cadet Challenge in Egypt, Spain’s Zhang Xuan and Thailand’s Tamolwan Khetkhuan. But one cannot ignore the presence of Chinese Taipei’s Lin Chia-Hsuan, Pauline Chasselin of France and Romania’s Andreea Dragoman who all have a top-podium finish each like Angela Guan of the US India’s Archana Girish Kamath, Egypt’s Amira Yousry and Chinese Taipei’s Miyuu Kihara.

Incidentally, Brazil’s Takahashi and Leticia Nakada had competed in Asuncion, Paraguay at the 2014 ITTF World Junior Circuit Finals last year. However, for all the 16 boys it is their first appearance in the ITTF World Junior Circuit Finals.

India, as hosts, have benefited from the last-minute withdrawal of one of the Qatari players, Abdulrahman Al-Naggar as his place has been given to the national champion Siddhesh Pandey. Originally, only Mudit Dani had qualified as the 13th player, based both on his final standings among the boys and Archana Kamath, who had finished 12th on the standings, too had been accommodated because of her ranking as well as the hosts wildcards.

As per the open draw taken out in front of the coaches, the Indian boys have been placed as the fourth players in groups 1 and 2, making things really difficult for both. Dani is clubbed with Korean An Jeehyun, American Zhang Kai and German Jonah Schlie in group 1 and Pandey forms part of group 2 where Slovenian Jorgic, England’s Helshan Weerasinghe and Spaniard Carlos Vedrial are pitted. But, in comparison, Archana is placed in group 4 which has Pauline Chasselin from France, Andreea Dragoman from Romania and Brazilian Leticia Nakada.

Since the format allows only two players from each group qualifying for the quarterfinals, the third and fourth finishers compete for the lower places.

However, Coach Sandeep Gupta sounded optimistic about the lone Indian girl, Archana, saying that she stood a better chance than the boys. “She is our best bet. I don’t expect her to be in the medal reckoning but I do anticipate her to qualify for the second stage,” said the coach after a practice session in the evening today.

India is hosting the event for the second time, after having conducted it in Hyderabad in 2010 when the finals were part of the World Cadet Challenge.

TTFI Press release