CHINA OPEN PRO TOUR TRIP
By Shashin Shodhan
This was the second Pro Tour that I've played as I played one in 1999 in Sweden. I was looking forward to seeing if I could give any top players trouble. I've been practicing in Shanghai 3 hours/day with Zhou Bin who was on the Chinese National Team for 4 years in the 1980s. Now, he's 41 years old and not as good as before so I could beat him 40% of the time. I was hoping I would be playing with someone much better than me. I only played 3 hours/day but it was very tiring as there was no "rest time" where I could block for him half the time. I was the only one doing footwork drills one after another and the heat and humidity didn't help either. I would go through 3 bottles of water in each 1.5 hour practice session. I lost about 5 pounds in the one month I was there.
I took a flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen which is about 30 minutes from Hong Kong. They had the Pro Tour in Shenzhen in 2005 as well. I was able to practice briefly with Janos Jakab when I got there who is about #100 in the world. Wang Liqin wasn't there so Janos got to practice with Ma Lin right before I played with him. From the world #1 to one of the lowest seeds in the Pro Tour! I played with the Hungarians the day before the Pro Tour started as well. There was a practice hall on the very bottom floor so it was cool practicing in the same hall as all the big names. They scheduled set times where the national teams would get certain tables. I also got to meet Swedish Team Member Par Gerell for the first time in 7 years. I lived with him in 2000 in Falkenberg and haven't seen him since but we exchange emails from time to time. He recently beat Waldner, Persson, and Primorac all in one tournament to win a big tourney in Sweden. Not bad!! He was one of the top juniors in Sweden in 2000 when he was 17 but I thought he had little chance to be top 100 in the world when I was living with him but he for sure proved me wrong. Stellan Bengtsson told me he thought PG couldn't be top 30 in the world and the next day, he beats Waldner, Persson, and Primorac so PG proved Stellan wrong as well!
The hotel the tourney players stayed at was really nice and a 4-star or 5-star but nearly all the players had their association pay their expenses. Since USATT has no money, I had to live in a cheaper hotel and luckily it was very close to the playing hall. There was a player party the night before the tourney at a nice location. Michael Maze was on my table so it was cool that I got to chat with him. I also met world #6 Tie Yana for the first time since 1999 when I was in Shanghai practicing. She now plays for Hong Kong.
I had the Belarus #3 player and Taiwan's #4 player in my group. Against the Taiwanese player Wu Chih-Chi, my goal was to win one game in that match. I ended up winning the first game taking advantage of his imperfect backhand loop with hard pushes. At 1-1 in games, I had 8-4 in both the third and fourth games and lost both games and I ended both games by missing my own serve. After just being happy to take one set going into the match, I realized during the match that I could beat him and started thinking too much and it cost me. At least, I'm happy that I can hang with some of these players when they are not at their best. My goal for my China trip is to make the Olympic Team which may seem very unlikely looking at my rating. However, I know I'm better than my rating and my results at the 2000 Trials prove to me that I am capable of playing above my normal level when it really matters. Depending on which US immigrants try out, that could greatly hurt or help my chances. If I can sneak into the top 4 in the January Trials, then the way the format is, I would need 1-2 good matches where I play above my level (or hopefully that I'm just better by then) at the April Trials against Canada. In the next match, I lost easily 4-0 to Kuchuk from Belarus and he was just steadier than me. Kuchuk ended up losing easily to Wu and Wu ended up defeating US Open Men's Singles Champion Aleksandar Karakasevic easily in the first round of the main draw.
I had doubles remaining and was paired up with a Scottish player Kenny who has been living in China for the past 2 years as his Dad's job got moved to China. He speaks fluent Chinese so was my translator friend this trip. If we won a match against Shen Qiang from Canada and his partner, we would have played Wang Liqin and Hao Shuai and obviously, I wanted that experience as a table-tennis memory. At 1-1 in games, we were up 10-8 in the third and lost that game and lost the 4th 11-7 so that memory won't happen!
There were hardly any spectators during the qualifying rounds and I was surprised and disappointed to see the crowd not being at full capacity until the final day where it still wasn't full but there were thousands of spectators. Some people told me that the tickets are expensive and since the matches are shown live on TV, people just stay home and watch them. I heard they only advertised the event 2 days before it started which is surprising since there is lots of interest for table-tennis in China. Whenever the Chinese players walked into the playing hall, the crowd would "Uuuuu" and "Ahhhhh" and start applauding. All the Chinese players also had security with them when walking from the playing hall to the bus to take them back to the hotel. I heard that Wang Liqin does not sign autographs for fans after matches where as the other players like Ma Lin and Wang Hao do. A lady who worked at the 2005 Pro Tour told me that she had taken Wang Liqin from the playing hall to the press conference after one of his matches and not one person in the Chinese media asked him a question. Wang Liqin replied "if you're not going to ask me questions, why are you calling me here?" Maybe there is some tension between the Chinese media and Wang Liqin as not one media member asked any questions to one of their country's biggest stars. The lady thought negatively of Wang Liqin as well which was all surprising to me since I always thought he had a very good reputation. I also saw Wang Liqin walk by people who wanted their picture taken with him where as the other Chinese players would stop and allow the picture opportunity to take place.
I was also surprised that in the Chinese Super League matches, there were only hundreds of spectators which is comparable to how many the typical German Bundesliga matches draw. However, in one week I was there, I know of about 5 Super League matches that they showed on CCTV5 so it is on TV all the time. I heard Ma Lin's current club paid $700,000 to his old club as just a transfer fee. That's a lot of money and with things being so cheap in China, that is really a lot of money in China. China's economy is booming and there are many sponsors for the Super League as the barriers are filled with sponsor names in Chinese characters. I heard that one company also put up $3 million for matches for China's top 8 players for 2-3 months on Hunan TV, another channel. However, the lack of spectators on-site was disappointing for me to see and hear. The sport needs a big league in the US with all the world's top players with thousands of spectators at matches and televised nationally and internationally. Basketball is becoming really popular in China and many NBA players now take trips in the summer for exhibitions, games, and appearances. Lebron James, Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Baron Davis, and others went to China this summer.
Yao Ming and the 2004 Olympic Champion 110-meter hurdler Liu Xiang (who won China's first-ever track and field Olympic gold medal at the Athens Olympics) are probably the 2 most famous athletes in China and the best paid. Wang Liqin is probably 3rd among male athletes. However, women's world #1 Zhang Yining is probably more famous than Wang Liqin as I saw her on commercials quite often advertising a sports apparel company and I saw her on billboards for Pepsi at various places in China as she's sponsored by Pepsi.
As for young guns, look out for 16-year old Kenta Matsudaira from Japan and 16-year old girl Liu Shiwen from China. Matsudaira is silky smooth and was involved in numerous awesome points against European competition. I hope he will be at the Junior World Championships at Stanford in December and hopefully, he'll play the final day as I arrive back from my second China trip on December 13 and the final day of the Junior Worlds is December 15.
It was cool meeting various players from everywhere and I'm glad I took part in the Pro Tour for more reasons than just my game.