Changes in the singles matches, attention to
the challenge of the top 10 prospects amidst the vacancy of the national team The Korea Table Tennis Association (Chairman Yoo Seung-min, member of the IOC, hereinafter referred to as the Association) will hold the ’76th SeAH National Men’s and Women’s Comprehensive Table Tennis Championships’ from the 14th. For six days until the 19th, Jecheon Gymnasium in Chungbuk, the same place as last year’s tournament.
The Comprehensive Table Tennis Championships has the longest history among all table tennis competitions in Korea. It has been held every year around the end of the year with the meaning of total settlement of Korean table tennis for the year. It is the only domestic competition with the title of ‘championship’ along with the category championship held in the middle. Considering that the category competition is a way to determine the winner of each age (type), the winner (team) of the comprehensive championship, in which players of all ages compete with their ‘ranking badge’, is the Korean table tennis champion.
This tournament, which will fill the history of the 76th, has a noticeable change in the singles matchup method. It was the first time that an international competition method was introduced that separates the preliminaries and the finals. The top 16 players were sent directly to the main round, and the rest of the players held the preliminary round to cover the 16 finalists, and then the top 32 finalists were to decide the rankings. The opponents of the 16 top rankers, whose positions in the bracket are pre-determined by seeding, will be determined through a draw that will be held immediately after the preliminary round. The team event, which takes place in the main tournament after the group stage, and the individual (mixed) doubles, which is a knock-out system-wide tournament, remain the same.
It is true that the existing method of avoiding the stage by defaulting to top-seeded players has relatively halved interest in the early stages of the tournament. The changed matchmaking method is expected to increase the motivation of lower-ranked players by giving a step-by-step goal of ‘advancing to the finals’, as well as increase the fun of watching matches based on a tighter match density. The association prioritized 16 top-ranked players based on their performance in the previous year’s competition, world rankings, and unemployment rankings to the finals, and the rest of the players, evenly distributed from general divisions, university divisions, elementary, middle, and high school divisions, and club clubs, were selected for the preliminaries. from which the competition begins.
One regrettable thing is that many of the male and female national team players are unable to participate as the schedule coincides with the regional qualifiers for the World Championships. In particular, in the men’s division, Cho Dae-seong (Samsung Life Insurance) and Jang Woo-jin (Army Sports Corps), who placed first and second in the previous year’s competition, cannot both come out. The women’s team also lacked signboards such as Shin Yu-bin (Korean Air) and Jeon Ji-hee (Mirae Asset Securities). Men Lim Jong-hoon (KGC Ginseng Corporation) and Ahn Jae-hyun (Korea Exchange), who have shown a high presence on the international stage, and women Seo Hyo-won (Korea Horse Association) and Kim Na-young (POSCO International) are also nowhere to be seen.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the fever of the comprehensive championship disappears. The vacancy of the signboards is filled by other signs. Park Kang-hyeon (Korea Water Resources Corporation), who recently ranked first in the national team selection match, is aiming for the top spot for the first time in eight years since the 2015 competition as the only participant among the semifinals of last year’s competition. Junior prospects, who are creating a sensation by entering the business world early, are also subjects of special interest. Oh Jun-seong (Mirae Asset Securities), the ‘son of Oh Sang-eun’, who already conquered the unemployment stage in the presidential term last year, is a typical example, and his teammates such as Jang Seong-il and Park Kyu-hyun are also aiming for an ‘early’ championship.
In the women’s division, Lee Eun-hye (Korean Air) and Yang Ha-eun (POSCO International), who placed 1st and 2nd last year, will both participate and challenge to advance to the finals consecutively. The challenge of the top 10 prospects, such as Lee Da-eun (Munsan Sueok High School), who reached the semifinals of last year’s tournament, and Kim Seong-jin (Dae Song High School), who recently won the best middle and high school competition, is expected to be strong in the women’s division as well. The interest of table tennis fans looking forward to the birth of a new star will grow as the game progresses. There is also a question of whether the defending champion teams in the team event, such as men’s Samsung Life Insurance and women’s Korean Horse Association, will defend themselves. 먹튀검증
And this year’s tournament also has players who will focus their attention on a slightly different resolution. The Comprehensive Championships, which opened its doors for the first time last year, invited strong players of the club this year as well. As the skeleton of the division league was completed, the number of participating players increased significantly as all players who placed third or higher in the national finals of the T2 and T3 leagues were allowed. As there are many elite retired players, the performance of the players in the club is at a level that cannot be ignored. Whether or not they will show some degree of competitiveness is likely to be the top concern of the preliminary tournament.
One of the things to note before the opening is that SeAH Group, which promised to participate in the development of table tennis in Korea as a long-term youth project sponsor, participates as the main sponsor of this tournament. The competition, which starts on the morning of the 14th, finishes the preliminaries by the 16th, and from around the 17th, competition for rankings in each event will begin in earnest. The men’s and women’s doubles and men’s team finals will be held on the 18th, and the men’s and women’s singles and women’s team finals will be held on the 19th. Major matches will be broadcast by MBC SPORTS+. You can also watch the game in real time through the official YouTube channel of the Korea Table Tennis Association (KTTA TV).