Indore : Mumbai’s Mudit Dani, Siddhesh Pande from Thane and Archana Kamat from Bengaluru will represent India in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Junior Circuit Finals to be played here today.
The three-day event is the culmination of 30 tournaments across six continents from which 16 boys and girls each have qualified. The 32 players in the competition will represent more than 15 countries.
In the USD 36,000 prize money event, with the winner in each category getting USD 3,800, no player would want to settle for 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 USD 462.50, the least from the competition.
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.
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.
@ Agency report
