ITTF Team World Cup

ITTF Team World Cup

Table tennis isn't a top sport of mine, however when I attended the International Table Tennis World Cup on 22nd January, there were some intriguing contests going on at the Copper Box. 

As many as 20 countries took part in this event which was a prestigious one on the Table Tennis calendar.  The Germans looked the strongest out of all 20 teams.  There were also other countries competing such as USA who looked a pretty good team and showed their potential in a doubles match on Table 3 where they swept aside Australia after a fairly tight first set. The American duo took the match 12-10,11-5, 11-1.

The pick of the action came on Table 2 in the mens singles where Germany beat Australia 11-7, 11-8, 8-11 and 11-4 in what was a fairly close and competitive game. Although Germany looked the stronger of the two according to the ITTF rankings, Australia did manage to make it into an intriguing contest.  

In between each match, there were some coloured soft balls being shot into the crowd for some light entertainment. At first, I thought this was a bit cheesy in the sense that you would probably see this in a crowd of a slightly younger age, but on the other hand, table tennis is a ball game, so I can sort of see where they are coming from.

Given the fact that table tennis is a fast paced sport, the matches were still straightforward to follow as they had the scores of each match on the screen. The event itself was well organised and you could clearly see what was going on in each court.

What was slightly confusing but more interesting about this event was the fact that you had two teams in the same country by means of China and Hong Kong China, which to me didn't make sense as Hong Kong is actually a city in China, so was there really any need to have a Hong Kong Chinese team? It's like saying you have England and London England, which wouldn't make any sense at all. But on the other hand Hong Kong is an autonomous part of China who have their own independence, so I can see where they are coming from. 

As far as my views on the event as a whole, I would say that it was quite interesting but a little boring at the same time. This was purely because I'm not really a fan of table tennis, so I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. As far as thee atmosphere at the event itself, it was a little quiet in terms of the spectators who were watching the matches. All you could hear was the sound of the ball constantly being hit by the players along with the crowd applauding every point won by each team.