Wimbledon is not moving to Budapest, but the world’s best are coming
In mid-May, the Hungarian Table Tennis Association announced with great fanfare that the top event of the reformed international competition calendar of the sport, the Grand Smash, one of the four tournaments, is coming to Hungary this summer. The announcement was made at a press conference, namely three members of the management of the international association. One of them was Roland Nátrán, the president of the national association and vice-president of the ITTF.
– This year, between July 11 and 24, Budapest will host the most prestigious event on the international competition calendar, the Grand Smash. The conclusion of the agreement for three plus five years, and we also received positive written feedback from the Hungarian government, but we still have to wait for the government’s decision to appear. We hope that Grand Smash Budapest will become as strong a brand over the years as Wimbledon or Roland Garros in tennis, or the Hungaroring in Formula 1, for example. According to our plans, the event in July will be more than a world competition, we want a show and a family festival at the same time, which will be an experience for all fans, said Roland Nátrán at the time.
The Grand Smash is similar to a world championship, with the prestige and not to mention the prize money of two million dollars, the world’s best at the table.
Unfortunately, the domestic Grand Smash plans fell through, the fight was “postponed” according to the information of the Hungarian association. Instead, Budapest will host three shorter WTT matches between July 11 and 23. And the strength of the Star Contender, which starts next Monday, is hardly inferior to that of the top-category Grand Smash tournaments.
In the BOK hall, we will see perhaps the best table tennis player of all time, the Chinese Ma Lung, in the men’s singles, who may have good memories of the Hungarian capital, because in 2019 he became world singles champion here for the third time. The 33-year-old table tennis five-time Olympic and 12-time world champion is currently second in the world ranking behind Fan Chen-tung – the latter is not coming to Budapest. But among the Chinese starters we can find Liang Qingkun (3rd), Wang Chuqin (14th) and Lin Kaoyuan (20th). Brazilian Hugo Calderano (4th), Japanese Harimoto Tomokazu (7th) and Nigerian Aruna Quadri (11th) were also named among the classic audience favourites, while the European elite was represented by last year’s World Cup silver medalist Truls Moregard (5th). .), the Slovenian Darko Jorgic (8th) and the German stars Timo Boll (9th) and Dimitrij Ovtcharov (12th) will be represented.
Ma Lung and Ovtcharov against each other:
Two types of free cards were distributed. One was awarded by the organizing country, in this case the professional association of Hungary, and the other by WTT. In this way, our players Bence Majoros, Ádám Szudi, Nándor Ecseki and Tamás Lakatos will be on the main board, while András Csaba and Ákos Kishegyi can try to achieve feats in the qualifiers.
The Japanese Mima Ito, ranked fifth in the women’s world ranking, is also coming:
The field will be even more prestigious in women’s singles. Two weeks ago, i.e. according to the conditions reflecting the entry deadline, only Feng Tien-vej from Singapore, ranked 14th out of the first 21st in the world ranking, did not indicate his intention to participate. The best Hungarian, Georgina Póta, could only start in the qualifiers as 57th, but she received a main draw free card, just like Dóra Madarász, Leonie Hartbrich and Bálint Bernadett. Helga Dari, Mercédesz Nagyváradi and Imre Leila can also compete in the qualifiers due to the size of the home field.
The winners of the individual competitions will receive ten thousand dollars (approx. HUF 3.8 million).
In men’s doubles, Ecseki, Szudi and András, Lakatos double main table, in women’s doubles the duo Madarász, Póta, while Imre, Nagyváradi and Bálint, Hartbrich are in the qualifiers. There will be no qualifiers in doubles, the best 16 doubles will start with the eighth finals, including Vegye with Ecseki and Madarászs.
Cover image: Ma Lung is a giant of sports (Source: Twitter/Shanghai Jiao Tong University)