World Champions Head Olympic Seeding

7/10/2012

The reigning World champions, China's ZHANG Jike and DING Ning are the respective top seeds in the Men's and Women's Singles table tennis events at the forthcoming London 2012 Olympic Games.

Staged in the ExCel Arena, play in the individual events commences on Saturday 28th July.

Medal contests in the Women's Singles competition, to determine the final three places, will be held on Wednesday 1st August and in the counterpart Men's Singles, the duels will be enacted one day later on Thursday 2nd August.

Furthermore, not only does China provide the top seeds in each event; also they provide the second seeds, in competitions that are limited to a maximum of two players from any one National Olympic Committee.

WANG Hao, the silver medalists in both 2004 in Athens and four years later in Beijing is the second seed in the Men's Singles event; whilst in the Women's Singles, LI Xiaoxia, like ZHANG Jike and DING Ning making an Olympic debut, is the second seed.

Elevated to fifth spot on the July World Rankings, Japan's Jun MIZUTANI is the Men`s Singles third seed, followed by Germany's Timo BOLL, the reigning European champion and the man, in many pundits' eyes, the main threat to the Chinese duo.

Winner of the Men's Singles title on the GAC GROUP 2012 ITTF World Tour Spanish Open earlier this year in April, Chinese Taipei's CHUANG Chih-Yuan is the fifth seed followed by the Koreans JOO Saehyuk and OH Sangeun, with Dimitrij Ovtcharov, also from Germany, completing the top eight names.

Meanwhile, in the Women's Singles competition, bronze medallist in Athens, Korea's KIM Kyungah is the third seed, with Japan's 19 year old Kasumi ISHIKAWA, on Olympic debut, being the fourth seed.

Japanese national team compatriot, Ai FUKUHARA follows in fifth place with Singapore`s FENG Tianwei in sixth spot. Hong Kong's TIE Yana and WANG Yuegu, also from Singapore, complete the top eight names.

Play throughout the individual events is based on the knock-out principle; the top 16 seeds enter proceedings in the third round, the players seeded 17 to 32 enter in round two with all others competing in the first round or the preliminary round.

For more information contact: media@ittf.com

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