Over the last two weekends, we had two successful Pro Tours in China. Since the sport is so popular in this country with millions of followers on TV, the ITTF has introduced a Chinese ITTF website, as a mirror to our very popular website in order to better service our Chinese fans. Millions upon millions have been added as visitors to our website and these numbers will grow over time, and I am sure that the ITTF website will soon become the most visited “single sport” website in the world. The Chinese version of our website is managed through our Asia office in Shanghai, coordinated by it’s Director, Steve Dainton, under the auspices of our IT Manager, Mohamed El-Shentenawy, in Ottawa, Canada—a true international arrangement. Due to many demands, our Asia office has recently hired locally two additional staff.
Looking at the results of the last two Pro Tour events in China, the Panasonic Open followed by the Volkswagen Open; it is obvious that the Chinese players love to dominate at home. Almost all events were won by the excellent Chinese players. That is not unusual. But what is remarkable is the number of new young and highly skilled Chinese players that are emerging and seen at these Pro Tour events hosted in China. It is amazing to me to see the relentless production of world-class players from China at a younger age every year. It is my contention that other countries must really focus their attention on the Junior Circuit, and the Global Junior Programme in order to raise the level of their juniors to at least narrow the gap, and hopefully reach the same level, with the Chinese junior players in order to be at the same competitive level in later years. I also think it behoves China to open up its doors and help other nations improve. Hopefully the ITTF Table Tennis Academy to be inaugurated in late 2006, with the support of Volkswagen, will help in levelling the playing field. For this, I thank the Chinese Table Tennis Association and Beijing University (the host) for this excellent opportunity to develop our sport and open its doors to the world. I also thank Volkswagen for providing some of the funding to make this project a reality.
Adham Sharara
ITTF President
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