2024 Hong Kong International Table Tennis Stars Challenge: Results and Highlights

2024-03-25 14:46:22

[Tilu News]The three-day “2024 Hong Kong International Table Tennis Stars Challenge” kicked off today (25th) at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium. Local golfer Marco Marco lost to “Rocket” Ronnie O’Sullivan 2:5. Although the attendance rate of this game was far less than that of the Masters held at the Coliseum two years ago, Marco pointed out that Factors that make it difficult to use the Masters as a metric of success.

Osuli Cloud

Marco Marco, ranked 83rd in the world, returned to perform at home after two years. The first match was against the seven-time world champion O’Sullivan. Among them, Marco, who reached the top 16 of the German Open last month, set his best ranking performance in four years. Although there are two major players in this match, the attendance rate is still about 40%, and the match will be played about 20 minutes later than the original time.

Fu Jiajun

O’Sullivan and Fu Jiajun won one game each with 105:83 and 84:0 in the early stage. In the early part of the third game, the two did not dare to attack rashly. Marco scored 20 degrees first, and then “Rocket” saw the opportunity and hit a 74-degree shot, and took the lead again at 82:37. He then pulled away to 95:0. Game count 3:1. Although Marco hit a cue 102 times to “keep a clean sheet” against his opponent and regained a victory, Osu stepped up again and won 121:6 and 68:50 in a row. In the end, Marco lost with a score of 2:5. Marco Marco will face Lisa Woski at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and O’Sully will play “quasi-god” Zhuo Linpu at 7:30 pm.

After the game, O’Sullivan attended a photo session with fans and left without being interviewed. Although the attendance rate of this game is far lower than that of the Masters held at the Coliseum two years ago, Fu Jiajun described the atmosphere as acceptable, and there is also an opportunity for Hong Kong audiences to enjoy the game in the form of a carnival, “Because the last time was during the epidemic, it was the first time after a long period of retreat. The response to this competition must be very good. However, there is an Easter holiday coming up this time, and everyone has less time to stay in Hong Kong than before, or relatively fewer people will participate, but I think the atmosphere is pretty good.”

He pointed out that this tournament is not an official ranking tournament and will be more casual in format. For example, the start time may not be the same as originally planned. When asked whether the effectiveness of promoting table tennis would be compromised due to the fact that there is no live broadcast of the game on local television despite the strong lineup of players, Marco said that it is difficult to compare with the Masters: “I think this time it is considered qualified because the 2022 The competition last year was so successful that if we want to use this as an indicator, it would be a bit difficult to compare everything. Moreover, there have been more and more competitions in recent years. Normal competitions will not be held from Monday to Wednesday. This time there is no solution. .”

In addition, Mark Williams, who defeated O’Sullivan this afternoon, posted photos of sightseeing on the top of the mountain on social platforms after the game. However, the tournament organizer announced in the evening that Williams was unable to attend tomorrow afternoon’s match against Si Jiahui due to physical conditions, and will be replaced by Kyren Wilson, ranked 12th in the world.