Top ten players to watch out for at World TT Championships 2022

The event will begin on September 30 in Chengdu, China.

The World Table Tennis Championships are set to start from September 30 to October 9. All the top countries from across the world are set to participate in team events for the men's and women's categories. China and Japan as always will look to dominate the World Table Tennis Championships along with Germany and Chinese Taipei giving a good fight.

There will not be much to fight for in the group stages with both teams coming out on top. The knockout stages will be interesting.

In the men's section, Germany will miss the services of veteran Ovtcharov.

From the Indian point of view, Achanta Sharath Kamal will not be participating due to less recovery time and also due to the injury at the National Games 2022. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran will lead the men's contingent along with Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar, Utpal Shah, and Sanil Shetty.

In the women's section, Manika Batra will be leading the contingent but since the Commonwealth Games have not been in good touch. Sreeja Akula, Diya Chitale, Swastika Ghosh, and Reeth Tennison will be spearheading the women's section.

In this article let's look at the top players to watch out for at the World Table Tennis Championships:

10. Jion Ji-hee

Jion is Korea's highest-ranked paddler reaching the quarter-finals at the Tokyo Olympics. She takes part regularly in the WTT events and reaches the last eight stages.

9. Darko Jorgic.

The paddler from Slovenia is ranked 8th but has not had a consistent run to the season. At the Tokyo, Olympics Jorgic beat Harimoto in the round of 16 to advance to the quarter-finals. Recently before the Commonwealth Games 2022, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran defeated Jorgic at a WTT Contender tour.

8. Doo Hoi Kem

The 25-year-old paddler from Hong Kong has won four medals at World Championships since 2014 and has been consistently performing well at the important stages. At the Tokyo 2020, the Hong Kong team won the bronze medal and at the individual event, she gave a tough fight to Chen Meng from China.

7. Hugo Calderano

Hugo Calderano from Brazil is the first Latin American to reach the top 10 of the ITTF World Rankings and also jumped to the World No. 3 position. The 26-year-old already being considered the greatest athlete of all time in the Americas region. Also at the Tokyo Olympics, he reached the quarter-finals stage. Though Brazil overall cannot give a good fight Calderano can be the one motivating them.

6. Dang Qiu

The paddler from Germany has been in great form off late. Dang Qui defeated Germany's no1 Dimitrij Ovtcharov at the WTT Contender Lima which enabled him to break into the ITTF top 10 rankings. In the recently concluded European Table Tennis Championships, Dang won the gold medal defeating higher-seeded Darko Jorgic.

In the absence of Ovtcharov Dang Qui will be shouldering the responsibility for Germany.

5. Mima Ito

Mima Ito is considered to be the toughest opponent by the Chinese paddlers such has been her dominance. At the age of 15, she took part in the 2016 Rio Olympics and won bronze in the team event. Then 5 years later in Tokyo 2020, she went one step further to win gold in the mixed doubles event. She transitioned from the junior set-up very early and is an integral part of Japan's success at the Olympics.

4. Sun Yingsha

The 21-year-old is the current world no 1 and is one of the favourites in the women's section. She won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and again stood 2nd in the China National games. She tends to lose crucial matches where she two finals last year against her countrymates. This time she would look to go past the final and win gold.

3. Tomokazu Harimoto

At the age of 14, he became the youngest to win an ITTF tour event and a year later went on to win the ITTF Grand Tour finals. He was also part of the Youth Olympics held in 2018 in Buenos Aires. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he lost in the round of 16 against Jorgic but has come back stronger since then. At such a young age he defeated the experienced Otcharov from Germany and gave a good fight to Ma Long whenever they met each other.

2. Ma Long

The 33-year-old is one of the most experienced players from China having won two consecutive medals at the Olympics (2016 and 2020). Since the start of 2013, he has progressed very well winning all the major events at his disposal and also going on to become an all-time great. He and Fan Zhen Dong always fight for the no 1 spot in the rankings and the depth in terms of players is very huge.

1. Fan Zhen Dong

The World No. 1 Fan Zhen Song will be the player to watch out for. After winning the silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics he has been in good form winning the major WTT Contender and WTT Star Contender events. At 25, he has won quite a lot of Championships from the Asian to the World level.

This time China have three players inside the top 5 of the World rankings and should make it to the podium in the men's section.