Should Paul Drinkhall get a bye into the quarter final??

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There is a ongoing discussion on facebook at the moment with Matt Ware and many other UK table tennis players. Matt Ware's status is No disrespect to him but how can our number 1 TT player get a bye into the quarter final of the England National Championships?? Can anyone explain this

Paul Drinkhall because he is the number 1 seed of the england national championships has got a bye straight to the quarter finals. Should this be allowed?

Because many people on this forum are not from the UK i want to know does this happen in your national championships or do even the top players have to play groups and work there way through the competition?
 
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How many players were there in total in the first round? If 15, why not gave the 1st seed a bye?
Last year, there were 30 players in the first round of China National Games. 1st seed ML and 2nd seed FZD both got a bye.

Edit, I need to add that I was referring to the first round of main draw of 2017 China National Games. Medalists of three major tournaments in 2016-2017 got qualified automatically (ML, XX, ZJK, FZD, FB, WCT) and 24 passed through qualification tournament in Mar 2017. LGY was not even qualified for the main draw.
 
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JHB

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As is said in the Facebook discussion - The English National Championships are now an invitation-only event, so once you get a couple of withdrawals the whole system goes to hell on a handcart. Also the top 3 or 4 players - women as well as men - are so far above the rest that the chances of anyone beating them are minimal, which shows just how good David McBeath's performance was yesterday but also gives Table Tennis England a thin justification for awarding byes. Surely they should at least ensure they actually have 32 players to begin with ?

Meanwhile if you look at the attendances at the Copper Box it's obvious that the event holds minimal interest for the club players who mainly make up the audience. As someone said, the whole event could have been played on 4 tables at BATTS or Cippenham ! Table Tennis England need a wholesale rethink I'm afraid, and quickly.
 
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Holding the nationals at the Copper box was an absolute farce. No atmosphere and no spectators, and it made even worse by the fact that there is OBVIOUSLY no spectators.
I like that the BBC have got the event this year, but will they bid for it again? Absolutely not. Get the nationals back into a big sports hall with a stand or two of tiered seating. Thats what the nationals is. The World Team Cup needed the copper box, and it put on a great show. To think they would have a similar atmosphere for the nationals is just laughable. The games have been poor. Really poor. I love table tennis, but I can’t watch it through sheer bewilderment that TTE has wrecked the country’s premier competition.
An embarrassing decision that shows just how out of touch TTE are with table tennis.


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To my eyes, it looks like the decision was made to piggyback on to last week's World Cup. The arena is still set up for it, the AV, streaming and PR is still in place. On paper it probably looks like an opportunity to reuse last week's infrastructure to raise the profile of the nationals. But the arena is configured for a World Cup and the Nationals doesn't have that pull, so it looks very empty. Also, it's London. For anyone north of Watford it's an expensive trip, and if you can only choose one you'd go to the World Cup.

Hopefully just a one-off.
 
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Agreed. They obviously got a deal to host the two events there.
I went to the Nationals when it was in Redbridge, think it was the Jean Brown. A great venue full of atmosphere. You just feel the copper box has no identity with table tennis, it has swamped this event. It can’t be enjoyable to play in such a soulless cave. For most in that hall, the nationals is their top event of the year, the event they peak for. Its been terrible to watch and I can only assume it’s been terrible for those players. It must be so uncomfortable. For the World Cup, it was a huge success. This is about 50 levels below. It’s the equivalent of playing table tennis at the o2 arena... unnecessary and damaging for the sport.


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To my eyes, it looks like the decision was made to piggyback on to last week's World Cup. The arena is still set up for it, the AV, streaming and PR is still in place. On paper it probably looks like an opportunity to reuse last week's infrastructure to raise the profile of the nationals. But the arena is configured for a World Cup and the Nationals doesn't have that pull, so it looks very empty. Also, it's London. For anyone north of Watford it's an expensive trip, and if you can only choose one you'd go to the World Cup.

Hopefully just a one-off.

Agreed. They obviously got a deal to host the two events there.
I went to the Nationals when it was in Redbridge, think it was the Jean Brown. A great venue full of atmosphere. You just feel the copper box has no identity with table tennis, it has swamped this event. It can’t be enjoyable to play in such a soulless cave. For most in that hall, the nationals is their top event of the year, the event they peak for. Its been terrible to watch and I can only assume it’s been terrible for those players. It must be so uncomfortable. For the World Cup, it was a huge success. This is about 50 levels below. It’s the equivalent of playing table tennis at the o2 arena... unnecessary and damaging for the sport.


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Well said, absolute shambles. I really hope TTE didn't put thousands into renting the arena. It could have been put to much better investment.
 

JHB

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Also, it's London. For anyone north of Watford it's an expensive trip, and if you can only choose one you'd go to the World Cup.

Hopefully just a one-off.

Not just London, but Stratford. Now if I still lived in Romford like I did many moons ago, that would be great, but as you say from north of Watford it's a dog of a journey. Not that Fairlop was necessarily much better, but I'd happily take a car there as an alternative to the tube whereas I wouldn't bother trying to drive to Stratford. Hurry up and open Crossrail I say - in the meantime, maybe back to the Midlands next year ?
 
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IMHO, the key issue was the timing of the national championships. One week we have the World Team Cup from Thursday till Sunday and next week we have the Nationals from Thursday till Friday. How many tt fans are able to take time off work during the week or abandon their families for days two weeks in a row ...

As to suitability of the venue - the Redbridge venue is okay for a GrandPrix event when most of the people present are competing, but it is nowhere near as spectator-friendly as the CopperBox area. Even the Hatfield Uni sports hall (where the 2016 nationals were held) is better than Redbridge.
 

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To answer the original point - No. No one should get a bye through any rounds in an invitation only event.

If people drop out, then yes..... Starting from the top, you can put the top seeds through the first round.

Moving onto the "CopperBox attendance fiasco".

For those of you outside of the UK - We experienced quite a bit of snow last week. For anyone that knows the UK, this means everything stops - Trains stop. Shops close. The country grinds to a halt (Englands and Wales that is.... Scotland are fine!).

That will account for a large portion of the empty seats.

Secondly, there's almost no way in hell that TTE paid for the CopperBox thinking they were going to fill it. Surely it was a joint deal with the World Cup (I don't know for sure.... I'd love clarification from someone).

Lastly...... Whilst I can see the point of view of having it in a local sports hall with a bit of seating (I remember watching it in Sheffield at Ponds Forge) - The sport will always be a small time sport in the UK, if we treat it as such.

I'd like to see it back at the CopperBox next year - I'd also like to see no snow or World Cup the week before, and thousands of tickets given out to school's for free.

Having it in a sports hall will appeal to the club players who already play the sport. You'll not attract anyone new, and it will look like a Mickey Mouse tournament compared with any other sport.
 
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JHB

says Aged and infirm of purpose
Moving onto the "CopperBox attendance fiasco".

For those of you outside of the UK - We experienced quite a bit of snow last week. For anyone that knows the UK, this means everything stops - Trains stop. Shops close. The country grinds to a halt (Englands and Wales that is.... Scotland are fine!).

That will account for a large portion of the empty seats.

Secondly, there's almost no way in hell that TTE paid for the CopperBox thinking they were going to fill it. Surely it was a joint deal with the World Cup (I don't know for sure.... I'd love clarification from someone).

Lastly...... Whilst I can see the point of view of having it in a local sports hall with a bit of seating (I remember watching it in Sheffield at Ponds Forge) - The sport will always be a small time sport in the UK, if we treat it as such.

I'd like to see it back at the CopperBox next year - I'd also like to see no snow or World Cup the week before, and thousands of tickets given out to school's for free.

Having it in a sports hall will appeal to the club players who already play the sport. You'll not attract anyone new, and it will look like a Mickey Mouse tournament compared with any other sport.

Fair point about the weather, although I'm not sure what the effect was on London itself - my son (who lives in Lambeth) said it was no big deal, but then he does tend to take a fairly laid-back approach to life. However it would certainly have put off people coming from further afield, possibly including some of the players.

As regards using the CopperBox again, could Table Tennis England afford it for an isolated event as opposed to tagging on to the end of the World Cup like they did this year ? The idea of giving free tickets to schools though is spot on. Meanwhile, if only we could get the TV onside that would be a huge help, but I know there's little likelihood at the moment.

I'm sure those of us in the UK have noticed that the singles (and increasingly the doubles as well) in the tournament tend to be dominated by the same players year after year until age, parenthood or the need to earn a living catches up with them. Or until they just can't be arsed any more. I really don't know if there's any solution to that, or even if a solution is desirable, but for me personally it does make the whole thing slightly less interesting.
 
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The bye thing got to do with number of entries into the draw.

I have seen limited number of entries where seeds would have byes (ie seed 1 and seed 2 is together, seed 3 and 4 is together)
so if 1-2 has bye, or 1-2-3-4 all have byes

I have also seem with round robin - some group has extra player
All this got to do with amount of entry and to see where is 1st round.
1st round can become QF, or can become R16 or R32 or R64 etc

having byes is not unnormal, but to me it is actually not good for the seed to have a bye - I rather them playing and getting "warmed up" for the next round
 
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I think its not a significant issue since not even the players care much about being national champ, and most national champs are not worth watching when you have so many world or asian/europe events one after the other. I think only german and france are interesting to spectate because there are many "upsets" , especially in france
 
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