Table Tennis Pro Tour Grand Finals To Begin In Seoul Thursday

Seoul, South Korea (AHN) – The finest table tennis players in the world will arrive in Seoul this week to compete at the ITTF 2010 Pro Tour Grand Finals, beginning Thursday at Seoul’s Olympic Gymnasium Stadium in South Korea.

Qualified paddlers from Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas are set to compete for the title and ITTF ranking points in the season-ending tournament.

After sweeping all table tennis events at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, China’s men’s and women’s teams will not participate at the Pro Tour Grand Finals because they failed to garner enough points to qualify in the four-day tilt.

China decided to skip several ITTF Pro Tour events and continental championships this year to train for the Asian Games.

With China’s absence, South Korea is poised to bounce back from a miserable ASIAD performance.

South Korea, which only salvaged a silver and four bronzes at the Guangzhou Games, is boasting a formidable 16-player squad, headed by 2008 Olympic gold medalist Ryu Seung-min.

Seung-min, who skipped last month’s Asian Games, will be joined by veterans Jeoung Young-sik and Oh Sang-eun in the men’s side.

Highly-ranked Singaporeans and other elite Europeans are also expected to perform well in all six events – (under-21) men’s and women’s singles, women’s singles and doubles, and men’s singles and doubles.

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