Whew.. what a day. Arrived a little before 10, watched Championship Division matches at 10, 1 and 4:30. Mostly women's matches in the morning, men's in the afternoon. Left before the 7:30 matches. Went around all the vendor booths - lots of interesting stuff to see.
They switched tables and matches around from what they were when I printed them out last Friday! No big deal, but had me looking around trying to find the matches I wanted to watch. The 10am session had the Japanese make short work of.. can't remember now.
Lots of fans, people clapping. The Chinese were on Table 1, but Table 1 was in front of the officials, no spectators allowed. But RM43 got you a seat about 10 feet above the nearest table, great view of the entire hall. The 1pm session had the Japanese team (the men, this time) make short work of... er, don't remember again. I should start carrying a notebook if I'm going to be writing this sort of stuff. The Chinese men were playing the Greeks on Table 9, almost under where I was sitting. Left the hall shortly after this (maybe 2:30pm - there were only 2-3 matches still going on) to have another peek at the vendors and also at the lower Division playing halls. They'd set up HUGE WHITE TENTS with plywood floors, with table tennis flooring. Yes, you needed tix to get in, but once you were in - hey, it's a ringside seat, almost NO spectators, and the matches were no less spectacular. Division 2 took place in one hall, Division 3 and 4 (the draw in Division 4 was full of vacancies so not so many matches) in another hall. Went back to watch the 4:30 matches - and the North Korea-Taiwan match that started at 1pm wasn't over yet! This meant that South Korea - Croatia had to start maybe an hour late! Yup, Joo Se Hyuk was going to be playing, and I wanted to watch that. Lots of very loud North Korean fans! Wonder where they came from - probably flown in together with the team. They were happy, North Korea won 3-2. It came down to the very last match - 5 sets, ended in deuce! No wonder it took so long. They all left en-masse once the match was over, probably straight to the bus and back to the hotel. Didn't see any "minders" but you never know.
Joo didn't play until the third match, he had a bad day and lost to Primorac (is this the same guy who was playing back in the 90s??). In fact S. Korea was down 2-1 when I left - don't remember the first match but in the second, Lee Sangsu beat the Croatian Chinese, Tan Ruiwu. Lee Sangsu plays very short points - his loops are flat as a board and fast as a rocket, he either misses or he hits them past the other guy. Only four of the nine tables were the Butterfly Tusson er, Truspeed show tables, the other five were plain old Butterfly rollaways. The four "good" tables were tables 1-4 - these were up next to where the "accredited people" sat. The two in the middle were 1 and 2, the ones to the sides were 3 and 4. The hall wasn't very full, the lower part (the premium RM43 seats) were about half filled, everyone sitting as far in front as they could. The other tiers were practically empty, especially the nosebleed section. This was a Sunday, so I expect attendance to drop off during the week, but it could/should pick up next weekend, during the elimination rounds. Tix prices really go up, though. It's cheap enough for schoolkid lunch money (in the nosebleed section) during the week, so they can attend if they want to.
Lots of choppers, especially among the women. Filus didn't have a good day either. The most spectacular player in the hall I watched by far was Gionis, the most spectacular match was Fan Zhendong vs. Gionis. Just amazing - fast, thundering loops, long floating chops that would barely clear the net and plop down on the table. Looked totally different style-wise compared to the other choppers.
Swag: Tibhar plastic "knockers" and paper fans, two free 1 star balls from Yinhe (this is what they're advertising on the Tenryu website - the one with the blue label is seamless, the other seamed. Not sure why they need both, maybe to give people a choice of using a ball OEMed by the same people who make the ball for an upcoming tournament), a 2016 Yinhe catalog. Was looking to spend money, almost bought a sheet of Tenergy 05 (to find out what the hype is all about) but the price wasn't less than what I'd pay mail-order, so I went for a sheet of Rasant Turbo (which WAS on discount) instead, so I got an Andro bag and an Andro catalog as well. Had a good time hitting against an I-Pong (if you think about it, that name is.. somewhat suggestive of something unpleasant) - these are a great deal bigger than I thought they were (about 2 feet tall). Robot plus net, they want RM700 for, I might go for one. If nothing else, it'd be something to use for exercise when no one wants to play.
Yinhe had "Sign Bats" for sale for RM10 (about US$2.40 - a fraction of what you'd pay at Eacheng), didn't buy one but they sold scads of them - mostly to kids out for autographs. There were usually a dozen kids, hanging around the entrance leading to the players' practice hall, brandishing these things - when I brought out one of my old balsa hand-made blades (for the same reason) they made polite sounds of envy. I never did get any autographs - when the Japanese men walked through the security guards shooed all the kids away - I was hanging around in the back and was slightly amused.
Interesting: Have a look on the ITTF TV website - they've got videos up already! And what's interesting - they're not only covering Tables 1 and 2 with streaming video, they've got streaming on EIGHT tables - four of which are in Divisions 2 and 3! Not only that, they have Division 2 and 3 matches that you can click on and watch. There were TV/video cameras EVERYWHERE in the hall, including some really big one (the sort you thought they USED to use for broadcast TV). The ticketing website said "absolutely no cameras and sound recording", but as you'd expect, everyone was happily snapping away with their Androids. I'll post a few photos tomorrow.
There was some sort of counterbalanced rig with a camera at the end of a long boom and a bunch of barbell weights at the other end, this was set up next to Table 3, where I moved to watch the Japanese women (Ai-chan, Mima-chan and Kasumi-chan made short work of the... Czechs.. that's who it was). If you watch the Ito - Cechova match, you'll see these interesting panning close-ups, with the camera moving behind the judges. I'm pretty sure it was this camera - I was sitting right above it. Something I noticed - the Japanese and Korean teams will all stand up when the coach is standing up and giving advice during time outs, between games, etc. Other teams (such as the Croats) do not... they were all just sitting around in various positions when the coaching was going on.
Who, or what, is "Perfect"?? They sell Chinese cosmetics...
Had a big booth next to the Liebherr booth (THEY sell bulldozers!).
Iskandar
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