14th WORLD UNIVERSITY TABLE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIP
Wroclaw, Poland - 2002
The Polish University Sports Association (AZS) took charge of organizing the 14th World University Tennis Table Championship. The university town of Wroclaw has a very large sports centre that provided the facilities for the contestants. In 1996 already, it did the same for the 3rd World University Woman's Handball Championship. The table tennis clubs representing the Wroclaw AZS play at a very good level and regularly organize tournaments locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Some students from the Polytechnical School and the Economics Academy play in the First National League (the highest level in Poland) and some are even on the Polish national university team.
Participation - A Real Success
In Wroclaw, 23 countries presented a total of 73 male and 67 female participants, a remarkable score, but not really a surprise. Table tennis is actually a very popular sport at FISU that has maintained its success over the years. In 2001, for the first time, the discipline was included at the Beijing Summer Universiade as an optional sport. There too, participation was exceptionally high—it is true that table tennis certainly feels at home in China and taking part in a tournament there is always an unforgettable experience.
In the opinion of Norbert Wolf, the FISU technical delegate, table tennis is a sport well suited to the academic environment. 'We mustn't forget that this sport has 5th place in the world in terms of the number of players. It is a sport that can be played easily without major constraints for the infrastructures. In addition, it can be played at all ages and any time as soon as one is tall enough to stand at the table.' Traditionally, Asia gets the lion's share at these meets. For the last edition that took place in Shanghai, the teams from the People's Republic of China and China Taipei towered over the games, taking twenty medals for the two of them! The Wroclaw edition was no exception—China won 6 titles out of 7, and the seventh went to...Japan!
Top Level
World University Tennis Table Championships are often also remarkable for the quality of the contestants. In Wroclaw, 27 men and 22 women were listed in the official classification of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). At the top of the list was the super favourite Zhijian Qin, ranked 34th. He filled the bill perfectly, standing head and shoulders over his rivals in the men's singles. In fact, all four semi-finalists were Chinese—transforming the men's singles into a national meet. So Zhijian Qin won the meet fairly easily over his compatriot Zhan Jian, in 4 sets to 1 (9,-9,3,9,4). The scenario was the same for the doubles, since the four top Chinese players faced each other again in the finals. Zhan Jian / Zhijian Qin measured up to Jinhao Guo / Minje Xi and logically the two finalists of the men's singles who teamed up in the doubles, had no trouble winning 3 sets to 1 (-9/6/ 6/10). Two Japanese teams vied for third place but nowhere was a non-Asian team to be seen.
What can we say about the women's singles, except that they too, were dominated by the Chinese. Two (Yongli Jiao and Xiaona Shan) played the semi-finals against one Korean, Jung-Yon Jang and one Japanese, Haruna Fukuoka. The final ended up with Yongli Jiao vs. Jung-Yon Jang. At the end of a fairly balanced game, Yongli Jiao took the title 4 sets to 2 (7/-5/5/-9/8/7). The ladies' doubles were the only event that did not go to the Chinese. Everything started well for them, since two Chinese teams had climbed to the semi-finals along with two Japanese teams. But the latter took the day both times, so they played against each other in the finals and Shiozaki / Fudjii won 3 sets to 1 (-8/3/7/6) over Fukuoka / Kawamura. With such good single players, both men and women, there was no problem forming effective mixed doubles. The two gold medal winners in the singles, Zhijian Qin and Yongli Jiaon, teamed up and outclassed all others. At the finals, they made short work of the Japanese couple Fukuoka / Mitamura as is shown by the score of 3 sets to 1 (-8/3/7/6). The team classification gave a few Europeans a chance to show their stuff. For the men, after the easy victory of the Chinese team that took the gold and lost only one game out of nine, the second place went to the Dutch team and the third to the Germans (and the Japanese).
For the ladies, France showed up in third place, along with Korea. Japan took the silver medal whereas the gold went, of course, to China … that did not lose a single match! So the edition was an exciting one, even if the powerful domination of the Chinese detracted a bit from the show. The other teams have taken their preparations for the next edition to heart to try to curb the trend.
Next Edition
The next World University Tennis Table Championship will be played in Györ, Hungary in 2004.
FINAL RANKING
MEN'S SINGLE
1. Qin Zhijian - CHN 2. Zhan Jian - CHN 3. Xi Minjie - CHN
MEN'S DOUBLE
1. Qin/Zhan - CHN 2. Guo/Xi - CHN 3. Mitamura/Tasei - JPN
MEN'S TEAM
1. Guo/Qin/Xi/Zhan/Luo - CHN 2. Lun/Sliepen/Janssen - NED 3. Bitzigeio/Richter/Sternal - GER
WOMEN'S SINGLE
1. Jiao Yongli - CHN 2. Jang Jung Yon - KOR 3. Fukuoka Haruna - JPN
WOMEN'S DOUBLE
1. Shiozaki/Fuiji - JPN 2. Fukuoka/Kawamura - JPN 3. Shan/Dai - CHN
WOMEN'S TEAM
1. Dai/Jiao/Shan/Tian/Yu - CHN 2. Fujii/Fukuoka/Kawamura/Ohata/Shiozaki - JPN 3. Glaudieux/Morel/Silvestre/Tamborini - FRA
MIXED DOUBLE
1. Jiao/Qin - CHN 2. Fukuoka/Mitamura - JPN 3. YU/Zhan - CHN
PARTICIPATION
1. BRA - 6 2. CHN - 16 3. CYP - 6 4. CZE - 11 5. EGY - 5 6. FRA - 10 7. GER - 6 8. HKG - 3 9. HUN - 7 10. JPN - 19 11. KOR - 14 12. MAC - 5 13. MDA - 4 14. MEX - 8 15. NED - 9 16. POL - 13 17. RUS - 3 18. SUI - 3 19. THA - 11 20. TPE - 12 21. TUR - 8 22. UKR - 2 23. YUG - 9 TOTAL: 190
A big thank you to the volunteers!
