Chinese players as expected dominate the nomination list for International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) player awards.
Japanese teenager Mima Ito is the only non-Chinese nominee in the women’s category while Swede Mattias Falck and Taiwanese Lin Yun-ju have made the men’s shortlist.
Falck was a runner-up at the World Championships earlier this year. He was beaten by China’s Ma Long for the men’s singles title. It was the first time in 22 years that a Swedish player had reached the final since Jan-Ove Waldner in 1997.
It was a breakthrough year for the 28-year-old, who was also the first Swedish player to break into the top 10 of the world rankings since 2002.
Ma Long is the odds on favourite to clinch the award. The 31-year-old veteran is a three time world champion as well as the reigning Olympic champion in the singles.
Apart from helping China retain the Team Wold Cup title, Ma Long also won the men’s doubles title at this years world championships, his second doubles title in the series.
Ma Long , who was out for much of 2018 because of a knee injury, but made a glorious return by winning the Qatar and China Open events.
Ma Long’s teammate Xu Xin is the second Chinese in the shortlist of four players for the award.
The current world number two won the Asian singles and mixed doubles title as well as the team title earlier this year.
Xu Xin suffered a shock early defeat in the men’s singles at the world championships but redeemed himself with the mixed double title with Liu Shiwen.
The 29-year-old southpaw was also the men’s singles winner at the Korean and Australian Open tournaments this year.
Yun-ju, who makes up the quarter of nominees, is the youngest Chinese Taipei men’s singles player to ever make the top 10 world ranking.
The 18-year-old has already proven his precocious talent by winning the Czech and Oman Open tournaments this year.
He has also won the mixed doubles titles at the China Open and Hong Kong Open tournaments.
Like Yun-ju, Mima Ito is another budding young talent to emerge this year. The 19-year-old is the youngest non-Chinese player in the top 10. The Japanese is among the four shortlisted for the women’s award.
Ito was a runners-up at three women’s singles tournaments this year – Hong Kong, Sweden and German Opens.
She also helped her team to finish runners-up to Japan in the recent Team World Cup.
Asian champion Sun Yingsha heads the three Chinese players in the shortlist. Yingsha, who won the singles and team titles at the Asian championships, is also the reigning world doubles world champion.
Like Ito, Yingsha is also just 19 and the talented youngster has also won the Japan, Australian and German Opens this season.
Reigning world champion Liu Shiwen will be the favourite to bag the award. She won both the singles and mixed doubles titles at the world championships. She also won the singles title at the World Cup as well as steering the Chinese side to the World Team Cup.
Cheng Meng, another member of the Chinese team that won the Team World Cup in Japan, has also been nominated.
The world championships semi-finalists also won the Hungarian, China, Korea and Swedish titles.
Five outstanding moments have also been shortlisted for the Star Point award.
The five are:
Timo Boll vs Ma Long (2019 ITTF World Tour Platinum Qatar Open)
Xu Xin & Fan Zhendong vs Dang Qui & Benedikt Duda (2019 ITTF World Tour Platinum Japan Open)
Lily Zhang vs Miu Hirano (2019 ITTF Women’s World Cup)
Gaston Alto vs Vitor Ishiy (2019 ITTF Pan America Championships)
Christian Pletea vs Yu Heyi (2018 ITTF World Junior Table Tennis Championships)
Members of the public can vote for their favourites. Online voting closes on Nov 24.
Voting can be done by clicking here.
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