by Simon Daish
The seventh edition of the celebratory occasion, seven awards have been lined-up in total for the 2019 ITTF Star Awards with the candidates for Male Star, Female Star and Star Point awards being unveiled on Wednesday 13th November (Voting for the three awards has now closed).
Here’s the list of nominees for the four remaining awards set to be handed out at the 2019 ITTF Star Award:
The nominees for the Star Coach presented by Butterfly:
Li Sun (China)
- Leading China’s Women’s Team to multiple titles in 2019: 11 World Tour titles, Women’s World Cup, Team World Cup, World Table Tennis Championships, Asian Championships and Asian Cup.
Jörg Rosskopf (Germany)
- 2019 European Championship winner with the German men’s team, winning the title without losing a single match. Seven German players in the world the top 100 in the world, most outside of any Asian country.
Bladimir Diaz (Puerto Rico)
- Coached the Puerto Rican Women’s Team to victory at the 2019 Pan America Games. Coached his daughter, Adriana Diaz to become Pan America Cup and Pan America Games Champion.
The nominees for the the Breakthrough star:
Lily Zhang (United States)
- First American to reach the semi-finals of the Women’s World Cup
- Clean Sweep at the 2019 Pan America Championships taking home four gold medals
- Outstanding progress in the World Rankings, from no.95 to no.33
Wang Chuqin (China)
- 2019 Swedish Open Champion, first World Tour title of career
- 2019 World Doubles Champion
- Outstanding progress in the World Rankings, from 83 to 15
Lin Yun-Ju (Chinese Taipei)
- 2019 Czech Open Champion, first World Tour title of career
- Youngest ever Chinese Taipei male player to win a World Tour title
- Became the top ranked Chinese Taipei player
The nominees for the the Male Para Table Tennis Star presented by Tinsue:
Rob Davies – Class 1 (Great Britain)
- 2019 Lignano Open Champion
- 2019 European Para Singles Champion
Thomas Schmidberger – Class 3 (Germany)
- 2019 Lignano, Polish and Egypt Open, Individual and Team Champion
- 2019 European Para singles and team Champion
- World Number 1 since October 2019
Yan Shuo – Class 7 (China)
- 2019 Slovenia Open runner up
- 2019 Asian Para singles Champion.
The nominees for the the Female Para Table Tennis star presented by Stag:
Giada Rossi – Class 2 (Italy)
- 2019 Lignano and Czech Open Champion
- 2019 European Para Singles Champion
- World number one since October 2019
Tamara Leonelli – Class 5 (Chile)
- 2019 Copa Christina Hoffmann runner up
- 2019 Pan American Para Singles Champion
Wang Rui – Class 7 (China)
- 2019 Slovenia Open runner up
- 2019 Asian Para singles and team champion
