Goa: Reigning women’s world champion and world no.3 Wang Manyu leading the list of eight wildcards and WTT nominations for the WTT Star Contender Goa, released by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) on Wednesday.
The WTT Star Contender Goa is scheduled to kickstart from February 27 to March 5. The tournament is being hosted by Stupa Analytics as well as the Government of Goa. The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) will also be the supporting partners of the tournament.
Besides Wang, who at 24 is one of Chinese Table Tennis’ foremost talents, another upcoming Chinese star Wang Chuqin, an attacking and exciting southpaw who is the current world no.3 in the men’s rankings, has also received one of the four WTT nominations.
The other two WTT nominations were picked up by the experience of senior German paddler Patrick Franziska in the men’s draw and Monaco’s Xiaoxin Yang in the women’s draw.
Four wildcards, two each in the men’s and women’s singles draws were also handed out. German world no. 11 Dang Qiu and Korean world no.18 Jang Woojin picked up the men’s wildcards while Puerto Rican Adriana Diaz and senior Portuguese paddler Fu Yu were handed the wildcards in the women’s singles.
The wildcards and nominations add more muscle to an already top-class field. Besides the reigning Chinese Olympic Champions, the field also boasts of current world number one’s Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha, as well as such exciting talent as Tomakazu Harimoto and Hina Hayata of Japan and Trul Moregard of Sweden.
The Indian challenge will be led by veteran Sharath Kamal, besides the likes of Sathiyan Gnansekaran and Manika Batra.
–IANS