OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Turned on the telly and what was on? Chuang Chih-yuan Vs. Joo See Hyuk. Playing in something called the "T2 Asia Pacific". Seems to be a team competition - in this case "Team JJ" vs. "Team Persson". Weird rules.. Joo took the first three games, then, since there were two minutes left, they played a fourth game to five points (Chuang won). Also weird was the table.. when was the last time you saw a table without a center line? (In Johnny Leach's 1950s book..) The table also had angled sides.. side balls would bounce downwards while edge balls would behave as expected.

Wonder who else is playing..

Iskandar

Interesting.. second game was Ding Ning vs... um... European woman, first name Matilda. So apparently it's not limited to Asian or Pacific players.. Ding Ning was ahead 4 games and they still had seven minutes left. So teams seem to be co-ed. Wonder if there might be man Vs. woman matches.. Definitely no doubles though, mixed or otherwise. 3rd match... Harimoto Vs. Karlsson. So far Team Persson is way ahead.

(Oh heck.. how did this end up under Penhold? )

Iskandar

Apparently when time runs out whoever is ahead wins the game in progress. Harimoto won the last game 3-2, and won 3 games to two. They are counting games, the short, abbreviated ones count as much as the full length ones. Karlsson's blocking is spectacular, by the way
Next game - Jion Jihee Vs Szocs (Romanian, who screams​when she gets a point).

Iskandar

Yeah. Bullsh!t rules.

How does that even work? If I were a player I'd take my time walking to pick up the ball and be sure to exhale loudly 3 times like Harimoto does before every serve/receive. I could also do the whole walking to the side of the net and touching the table 2 times before every serve.

More importantly, why is this posted under Penhold???

Hopefully someone moves it to "general" soon.. This is a problem when posting with a phone, sometimes you can't see what you're doing. Typing is enough of a pain as it is.

In any case.. well, it was interesting, as much as top pro-level invitational events can be interesting (not very). Nothing really at stake, but some very spectacular individual matches nonetheless (e.g. Samsonov vs. Mizutani). The format was fine, 24 minute max per tie to keep things moving. You can squeeze about four games plus a short game into that time. Last I looked, Team Persson was way ahead of Team JJ (Jiang Jialiang I think).

Turns out it's a LEAGUE. Here's the web page:

http://t2apac.com/

Turns out it's just Day 2 of a 3 day fixture, that means more matches tomorrow! And this is just Round 1, Round 6 is in November. A list of players involved:

http://t2apac.com/playerspage/

At least three choppers, probably more. Several lesser-known Chinese (one's ranked 122, several are unranked), also Hayata Hina, Ding Ning and Feng Tianwei. Boll and Ovtcharov are in it, too.

In any case.. today's stuff is on YouTube:



Take a gander at the weird table. Where are these games taking place?? Here (in Malaysia!).

You're right about one thing though... Not a single penholder in it (so far as I can see...) Though JJ himself played penhold.

Iskandar

Actually, there's $1.75m USD prize. Haven't seen anything about how that's going to be distributed. Probably everybody, including the last place finishers, gets something.

Well, I imagine there'd be prize money, or they wouldn't get top players to take part. But there's no national prestige or titles involved.

I'll definitely catch tomorrow's games, at least some of them. Nice that you can watch them for free on YouTube, too.

Iskandar

Knowing ITTF it'll probably be $1.74m for Sharara and players can divide the spoils.

This is not an ITTF event, so no cut for them.

You also can't waste time.
They have 15 seconds between points.
15 seconds for the towel break.
The umpire warned and then faulted a serve that was hidden by the guys chin.
So they're also enforcing the rules.

I like T2.
The camera seems to be closer so you can see what going on a little better

_________________
Viscaria
FH: H3 Provincial Blue sponge
BH: Omega VII Pro

C'est la faute a Voltaire...

(Pardon my French..)

Iskandar

T2 NEXT TO THE BEST.

$1.75 billion on offer is quite respectable sum, still not the biggest.
The ever-known most lucrative table-tennis event was SASAKAWA Cup (a seria of 8 rounds) held and sponsored by Sasakawa Nippon Corporation back in the mid 1990s, with total prize money of $1 billion.
According to the condition of the event, all the money was to go to a winner's hands. Vlad Samsonov gained the whole Cake.

It looks T2 is a revamp of the older spectacle. No insitu spectators, though.

Doesn't seem to be any connection, other than they're both table tennis events played on one table..

Iskandar

Day 3 in progress. Live streamed on YouTube.



Looks like Team JJ vs. Team Rossi (Rosskopf)

Iskandar

Earlier match - Boll vs. Mizutani.



Starts around 1:35.

Turns out each match is worth $1000...

Iskandar