The tournament, to be held in Saskatoon on May 21-22 at Evan Hardy Collegiate, brings ping-pong players from Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., Manitoba, and Minnesota, Minn.
Executive director of the Saskatchewan Table Tennis Association (STTA) Dwayne Yachiw says the majority of Canadians associate table tennis as a recreational activity.
“Most people think of it as sport where you play with your buddies in the basement with a couple of beers,” Yachiw said, and “it has the distinction of being a beer sport,” he added.
Yachiw, along with others in the STTA, are trying to change ping-pong’s persona. “It is one of the top-four sports in some parts of Europe, Scandinavia and Asia,” said Yachiw, who has been director of the association for 10 years.“But it remains a tough slug for Canada.”
The 2011 Western Canada Open Table Tennis Championships takes place, quite unexpectedly, in Saskatoon for the second year running.
A rotation policy is usually the criteria used to determine the host venue, but Manitoba, and subsequently Alberta, both dropped out of contention, leaving the STTA with a conundrum.
“We had to run with it. We scrambled to put it together,” Yachiw said.
But because the tournament went off without a hitch last year, he said he had no qualms about once again showing-off the Hub City.
Gary To, 31, lived in Prince Albert for nine years after emigrating from Hong Kong. He has played table tennis for 20 years and cannot wait for his opening match.
“It’s like the Davis Cup of table tennis. There is a lot of pride representing your province,” To said.
The quality of players’ is not as high as in previous years, To, whose family resides in Saskatoon, said.
Players from B.C. are usually the one’s to beat, he added.
He hopes his dominant forehand and close-to-the-table style of play will boost him to the knockout stage.
“I am a smaller guy, so I stay close to the table. You have to be quicker and have good reflexes to play this style,” To said.
The tournament has team and single competitions. Sunday’s open singles, consisting of 39 players, is the main event, and is arranged through a rankings' system.
After a round-robin phase, the top two players from a grouping of three will continue to the knock-out stage, classified as the championship round.
Saskatchewan’s No. 1 seed, Alayna Chan, will compete in women’s singles. Playing for nine years, she acknowledges “the different kind of rubber,” on her racquet as a contributing factor to her sustained success.
“It’s a kind of inverted bubbly, pebbly design that adds a unique spin to the ball,” the 17-year-old table tennis wizard said.
“It’s a hard skill to master, but just as hard to play against.” Her interest in the sport piqued accidentally when she went to watch her brother play and the “coach put a racket in my hand,” and the rest is history, the native of Saskatoon said.
“There is always more to learn and people don’t realize how physically straining a sport it is,” she said.
Chan is seeded among the top-20 players in Canada and will travel east to Toronto to compete in July’s Nationals.
Coverage of table tennis is slowly increasing, Yachiw added, saying SaskTel will be covering the finals on Sunday.
Over 60 per cent of participants are representatives of Saskatchewan table tennis. To gain a firmer handle on table tennis in Canada, visit http://www.ctta.ca/.
