USA Table Tennis Players on the ITTF TEAM LIEBHERR WORLD 2018 CHAMPIONSHIPS

USPA NEWS - Sixty-third edition of the ITTF Team Table Tennis Championships took place in Halmstad, Sweden from April 29th till May 6th, 2018. This Table Tennis Spectacular was attended by 144 Teams and thousands of spectators coming to the Halmstad Arena to watch the Table Tennis battles and by millions of table tennis fans globally viewing the competitions via the ITTF live stream broadcastings and videos of matches on the Internet!

The teams at the Liebherr 2018 World Team Table Tennis were split into three divisions for both men and women. The top division called the Championship Division was made up of 24 best teams, which were put into four groups of six teams for the first stage of the event - Round Robin competitions. The winners of these divisions were crowned as World Champions.
Our Women´s team was qualified for the Championship Division as team #23 and was seeded into Group B, under number six, together with Teams Japan, Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, and Egypt. Women´s Team USA for the 2018 ITTF LIEBHERR Team Championship was comprised of USA1 - WANG Amy (WR: 481) from New Jersey, USA2 - WANG Xinxue (WR: “”) from New York, USA3 - WU Yue (WR: 122) from New Jersey, USA4 - ZHANG Lily (WR:56) from California. The Coach of the US Women´s National Team on the #ITTF2018WORLDS in Sweden was GAO Jun. The Coach said to me in an onsite interview, that they came to this World Event to “show our best.“ As we can see all their rivals in the Group B are experienced and well-trained teams. Nevertheless, our sportswomen could demonstrate decent games and their confidence, seems, raised as the Championship progressed.

Three of the teammates, namely, Lily Zhang, Yue Wu and Amy Wang recently played for the US Team on the ITTF World Cup in London, United Kingdom and had demonstrated a good performance there. Xinxue Wang, although new to the US National Team and quite recently gave the birth to a baby had been a good teammate and competitor through the course of the Championship (she won a match against Thailand´s KOMWONG Nathan “” 3:2 in the Round 13-20). With the best results in the Group B competition such as loosing to the Team Hungary “” 2:3 and winning against the Team Egypt 3:0 (WU vs. MESHREFf: 3:0, Zhang vs. ABDEL-AZIZ: 3:0, WANG vs. HELMY: 3:0) our team took 5th place in the group and with this result proceeded to the knock-out stages of the Championship. There the US Team beat the Team Czech Republic “” 3:2 in the Round 13-24, and then Team Thailand “” 3:2 in the Round 13-20. The final point was put by the US Team in the Round 13-16 by beating Team Poland “” 3:2, taking 13th place in the 2018 ITTF LIEBHERR WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION and by that securing a spot for the US Women´s Team on the next ITTF WORLD TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

The USA Men´s Team ranked number 38 was competing in the second division of the ITTF LIEBHER 2018 TEAM Men´s Championship. With being on that position the US Men´s Team was put into the Group H of six teams onto 4th place together with Teams Spain, Iran, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Puerto Rico. Since the ITTF TEAM WORLD CUP in London earlier in this year, there happened some transitions in the compositions of the team in comparison with the Tournament in the United Kingdom: Adar Alguetti (WR: 357) from New Jersey, who played in London was absent and two new, in terms of the team members in London, players appear in the team, who participated in the US Men´s Team earlier on the 2017 ITTF LIEBHER TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in Germany. So, at this time the US Men´s Team was comprised of USA1 FENG Yijun (WR: 412) from New York, USA2 JHA Kanak (WR: 82) from California, KUMAR Nikhil (WR: 686) from California, USA4 TIO Nicholas (WR: 313) from California. The US Men's Team went through the Group´s stage with very good results winning against Spain “” 3:2, Kazakhstan “” 3:1, Luxembourg “” 3:0, Puerto Rico “” 3:2 and loosing just Iran in a tight contest “”

2:3. After that, the US Men´s Team went into knock-out stages and their first opponent was Team Netherlands, whom our athletes lost in a close contest “” 2:3. The final result “” 33rd place. CONGRATULATIONS!!! The team efforts of both the Women´s team and the Men´s team were apparent and the support of whole USATT delegation at the #ITTFWORLDS2018 was quite visible. The team of the USA Coaches “” GAO Jun, Stefan Feth and the USATT High-Performance Director Joerg Bitzigeio lead the USA National Teams to the successful results. Both Teams will be present and competing on the next ITTF TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS and are eager to achieve more advanced results in the future and we have to expect from them achieving a new Table Tennis Heights!
The ITTF 2018 LIEBHERR TEAM WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS in Halmstad, Sweden was a Festival of High-Performance Table Tennis and will be in memories and hearts of Global Table Tennis Community in years to come!