Stellar field poised for WTT Star Contender Doha return

WTT Star Contender Doha will feature a host of world-class table tennis athletes when it makes its return to the Lusail Sports Arena next month.

Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-Ju and compatriot Cheng I-Ching will spearhead the field as the highest-ranked athletes at world number five and eight in the ITTF Table Tennis World Ranking of the Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles, respectively.

WTT Star Contender Doha will be their first competitive international event since winning the Mixed Doubles bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games earlier this month.

Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, who showed his class by beating Lin to win WTT Contender Doha in March, is back and part of the strong field. The players will kickstart the WTT Star Contender Doha campaign at the Lusail Sports Arena from September 20-25.

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All eyes will also be on Nigeria’s Quadri Aruna, a three-time Olympian, who featured in the third round at the recent Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. He was the second seed at WTT Contender Budapest and progressed to the quarter-final stage.

Republic of Korea’s Jeon Jihee, who reached the Women’s Singles quarter-final in Tokyo, has also been confirmed for the Qatari showpiece

Expectations for Monaco’s Yang Xiaoxin are high, as she aims to continue her winning ways following her victory in the Women’s Singles final at WTT Contender Budapest last week. England’s Liam Pitchford, the top seed at WTT Contender Budapest, will also be aiming to extend his run at the Contender Series after reaching the quarter-final stage in Hungary.

Germany’s Ruwen Filus, who enjoyed a runner-up finish at his first WTT event in Doha in March earlier this year after starting as an unseeded player then, will be relishing another opportunity to create an impression again.

Other notable names expected to light up WTT Star Contender Doha include Brazil’s Hugo Calderano and Slovenia’s Darko Jorgic for the Men’s events. Hong Kong, China’s Doo Hoi Kem and Lee Ho Ching, who were part of the bronze medal Women’s Doubles team at the Olympics, will also be back on the tables. They will be in good company, alongside Britt Eerland of the Netherlands, Canada’s Zhang Mo and Egypt’s Dina Meshref in the Women’s events.

WTT Star Contender Doha is the third WTT event in Qatar in 2021 and offers 600 ITTF Table Tennis World Ranking points and a USD 200,000 prize purse.

WTT Star Contender events sit in the third tier of the WTT Series as part of the revamped event structure that WTT, a commercial and events subsidiary of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), has created.