The strongest ever field has turned up in Berlin, Germany for the 2016 ITTF World Tour German Open, which begins today 27 January 2016.
17 of the top 20 men and 15 of the top 20 women will battle it out for valuable world ranking points heading into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, in front of a near sold out crowd at the Max-Schmeling-Halle Arena.
Local favorite and the number two seed Dimitrij OVTCHAROV is eager to win his third German Open to give himself a boost ahead of next month’s World Team Championships: “It’s absolutely a top field, I never seen such a strong field in an ITTF World Tour event. I have practiced well and had a strong start to the year. This is my first international event for six weeks, so let’s see how I go. I will try my best to be champion again, and give myself confidence heading into the World Team Championships in one month’s time.”
For the German to win his third German Open title, he will have to get past the man who was unstoppable in 2015, the defending champion MA Long (CHN). The world number one won all the major world titles there was to win in 2015, including the World Championships, World Cup and the World Tour Grand Finals and only lost one match all year on the international arena.
If the prospects of playing MA Long was not daunting enough for OVTCHAROV, the German will also have to get past reigning Olympic Champion Zhang Jike (CHN) and team mate Timo BOLL (GER), who is making his international return after five months out.
The top three seeds in the women’s draw, Japan’s Ai FUKUHARA, Kasumi ISHIKAWA and
FENG Tianwei from Singapore will be looking to restore some pride after suffering early defeats at last week’s ITTF World Tour Hungarian Open.
Germany’s HAN Ying and SHAN Xiaona will lead the local charge in Berlin, with European Champion Elizabeta Samara (ROU) hopeful of continuing her career best form into 2016.
The German Open is the second of the 20 events on the 2016 ITTF World Tour and the first Super Series event of the year. The ITTF World Tour is categorized into three tiers: Super (six events) Major series (six events) and Challenge (eight events). The higher the tier, the higher the prize money, better playing conditions and tougher competition for the title.
All the players playing ITTF World Tour events are fighting for not only for prize money and world ranking points, but also World Tour ranking points to qualify for the lucrative World Tour Grand Final, taking place on 15-18 December 2016 in a location to be announced.
The 2016 ITTF World Tour is set to be the most extensively followed tour in history, with more events shown live throughout the world on television, and all the events being shown live on ITTF’s live streaming platform, ITTF.com/itTV.
In addition to the men’s and women’s singles event at the German Open, the world’s best players will also be playing men’s and women’s doubles and the stars of the future will be lining up in the men’s and women’s under 21 events.
The qualifications for the ITTF World Tour World Tour German Open starts today, 27 January 2016, with the main draw starting on 29 January and the finals matches on 31 January 2016.
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