WTT Singapore Smash 2025 (30 Jan ~ 9 Feb 2025)

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I think the goal was to bring a different vibe to the Smash events to give them an enhanced aesthetic. Probably not for everyone but not adding more ceremony to your bigger events begs the question of what makes them bigger...

do you know, there is 3 events going on at this ongoing smash?

ITTF Para
Smash Youth
Smash

very busy

 

[NextLevel]

You can watch and decide whether the announcement enhances or takes away from the event:

 

[TampaBayTableTennis]

oh the humanity!!!

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

They need to place screaming fan girls on both sides of the aisle. Spectators looked relatively bored.

 

[NextLevel]

They need to place screaming fan girls on both sides of the aisle. Spectators looked relatively bored.

It's what table tennis fans especially the purists prefer. A focus on the sport. Fan girls are a distraction from the competition. Top players in the past never needed them. The girls breaking into Fan's hotel room are putting the sport at risk and causing early retirement.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

you can't use cnt fan club fan girls - because

1) they have been banned by CTTA
2) they will boo the other players

 

[RefereeNumber2]

The tour finals are run by the ATP which is an American company, setup in the 70s in America by American entrepreneurs
It was me who initially referred to the production element as American and it most certainly started in America with American sports and has been exported and adopted across the world.
And I didn't mean anything negative when I said it. So the production being as good as it is and being referred to as American is something to be proud of imo.
My referencing of it as American only came about when someone said events that don't have it aren't real events, with which I disagreed because, culturally, events in UK and Ireland have always had much less of the production asthetic in the past 40 yrs of my attending them but they were still very real. 👍

I only mentioned it so that nobody would be confused that maybe these tournaments took place in the US. Regarding the ATP: it was founded in 1972 by two Americans and one South African. Both the current Chairman as well as the current CEO are Italians, and the ATP's headquarters are in London, with branches in Florida, Monaco and Sydney. Certainly it's been influenced by American management practices, as basically every international corporation has, but the ATP is essentially a joint partnership between the tournaments and players, both of which have been about as international as it gets over the past 15 years or so. If anything, I'd say the ATP of the past decade-plus is more European than American given the prominence of Europeans in management and European stars at the top of the game. Tennis has also been making a big push to expand in Asia over that time period.

But anyway, the nationality (or lack thereof) of the ATP seems beside the point. It's clear the WTT is trying to port over as many aspects of the pro tennis tour into table tennis as possible (seriously, even stuff like how many rankings points different tournaments are worth). How well that will work, I'm not sure. But given how successful the ATP and WTA have been at attracting and keeping tennis fans interested, it seems like a reasonable place to start. Copying the player intros from the ATP finals is just one small part of that.

 

[NetProphet]

I only mentioned it so that nobody would be confused that maybe these tournaments took place in the US. Regarding the ATP: it was founded in 1972 by two Americans and one South African. Both the current Chairman as well as the current CEO are Italians, and the ATP's headquarters are in London, with branches in Florida, Monaco and Sydney. Certainly it's been influenced by American management practices, as basically every international corporation has, but the ATP is essentially a joint partnership between the tournaments and players, both of which have been about as international as it gets over the past 15 years or so. If anything, I'd say the ATP of the past decade-plus is more European than American given the prominence of Europeans in management and European stars at the top of the game. Tennis has also been making a big push to expand in Asia over that time period.

But anyway, the nationality (or lack thereof) of the ATP seems beside the point. It's clear the WTT is trying to port over as many aspects of the pro tennis tour into table tennis as possible (seriously, even stuff like how many rankings points different tournaments are worth). How well that will work, I'm not sure. But given how successful the ATP and WTA have been at attracting and keeping tennis fans interested, it seems like a reasonable place to start. Copying the player intros from the ATP finals is just one small part of that.

I have to say, when I saw the first tour finals played indoor with the intros, I can't remember it was probably '17 or '18 when I saw it, I thought it was absolutely awesome. At amazing indoor venues like that you can do it and it was such a departure from the usual it had a. out of this world element to it!
The Tennis didn't disappoint either!!

 

[Metaxa]

Lee Seungsoo is blijkbaar 13 jaar oud. Wat een BH!!!

 

[Brs]

They need to place screaming fan girls on both sides of the aisle. Spectators looked relatively bored.

Opposing screaming fangirls on opposite sides of the aisle for more drama. WTT can recruit extras to pretend to be screaming fangirls of the non-Chinese players, if one ever appears in a final.

 

[NextLevel]

I only mentioned it so that nobody would be confused that maybe these tournaments took place in the US. Regarding the ATP: it was founded in 1972 by two Americans and one South African. Both the current Chairman as well as the current CEO are Italians, and the ATP's headquarters are in London, with branches in Florida, Monaco and Sydney. Certainly it's been influenced by American management practices, as basically every international corporation has, but the ATP is essentially a joint partnership between the tournaments and players, both of which have been about as international as it gets over the past 15 years or so. If anything, I'd say the ATP of the past decade-plus is more European than American given the prominence of Europeans in management and European stars at the top of the game. Tennis has also been making a big push to expand in Asia over that time period.

But anyway, the nationality (or lack thereof) of the ATP seems beside the point. It's clear the WTT is trying to port over as many aspects of the pro tennis tour into table tennis as possible (seriously, even stuff like how many rankings points different tournaments are worth). How well that will work, I'm not sure. But given how successful the ATP and WTA have been at attracting and keeping tennis fans interested, it seems like a reasonable place to start. Copying the player intros from the ATP finals is just one small part of that.

I think no one would confuse this tournament with having taken place in any part of the USA. But maybe not...

 

[NextLevel]

I only mentioned it so that nobody would be confused that maybe these tournaments took place in the US. Regarding the ATP: it was founded in 1972 by two Americans and one South African. Both the current Chairman as well as the current CEO are Italians, and the ATP's headquarters are in London, with branches in Florida, Monaco and Sydney. Certainly it's been influenced by American management practices, as basically every international corporation has, but the ATP is essentially a joint partnership between the tournaments and players, both of which have been about as international as it gets over the past 15 years or so. If anything, I'd say the ATP of the past decade-plus is more European than American given the prominence of Europeans in management and European stars at the top of the game. Tennis has also been making a big push to expand in Asia over that time period.

But anyway, the nationality (or lack thereof) of the ATP seems beside the point. It's clear the WTT is trying to port over as many aspects of the pro tennis tour into table tennis as possible (seriously, even stuff like how many rankings points different tournaments are worth). How well that will work, I'm not sure. But given how successful the ATP and WTA have been at attracting and keeping tennis fans interested, it seems like a reasonable place to start. Copying the player intros from the ATP finals is just one small part of that.

It's not just tennis, it's also badminton. It's funny how people are claiming that they watch all kinds of sports and they don't see the same things happening, when even a cursory look at Asian sports will show the same exact things pretty much everywhere - here are players coming in on elevators:

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It's not just tennis, it's also badminton. It's funny how people are claiming that they watch all kinds of sports and they don't see the same things happening, when even a cursory look at Asian sports will show the same exact things pretty much everywhere - here are players coming in on elevators:

are you saying you hearing wwe announcement here?

i can't hear wwe in the tennis and badminton clips, not sure if it is my ears or yours, haha
badminton is unrushed, tranquil and allowing the audience to clap.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

Herewith the entrance of WTT Smash mens final

thanks to Nextlevel and a few other who provided some other videos, from viewing all of them, there is no doubt WTT has the darkest theme, in fact, total darkness in the spectators stand (wwe still have some dim lights on there).

And I still believe there is no reason for the announcer to yell in WTT. Going to the tone of badminton or tennis, won't hurt table tennis imo.

 

[Shine]

Because Xunyao Shi is obviously a strong player who for some reason (maybe key losses, maybe because she isn't a lefty) isn't getting opportunities.

Nah the head coach is plotting against her. I have that on record from agentic people familiar with the matter.

 

[Shine]

Clueless? I'd say not punishing SYS's stalling *immediately after being reprimanded for stalling* was. That was so in your face; respectless, and totally lacking sportsmanship. (Unexpectedly, of course; SYS would be a great player if she had just an ounce of that.)

Lol, on this trajectory she's already great and would likely win the Olympics with CM out of the way, but sure that moment was enough to dismiss her as totally lacking sportsmanship. Do you know if she was trying to get her emotions in check after being reprimanded?

 

[Shine]

China is the only country with centralized system. All other countries are all independent.

With China, if you the head coach and both players train under you, then it is complicated and shows favoritism, which is not good.

So yes, I like coaches too, and ok when it is truly independent. If same team, it is customary to have no coaches to be neutral.

What makes the German team or the Korean team different from the Chinese team in terms of coaching structure?? Coaches are few and far between, and lines are blurred. China just has more players than other national team usually accommodates which necessitates putting couple players under one coach.

 

[Shine]

Do you mean at only junior level? I know what you mean but this isn't quite true At senior level Other countries have moved to systems where national team coaches interact with and train the players altogether at least periodically for majot events. In fact, Nathaniel Molin became head coach of French men simply because he coaches the Lebruns. Jorgen Persson designed systems of coaches for lots of major tournaments with Sweden until his retirement after the Olympics. Rosakopf has tremendous control in Germany. So because of China, lots of countries have become more centralized as well if they were not already.

Very astute observation.
In fact teams like Japan more or less copied the make-up of the CNT as much as possible but retained some Japanese characteristics ( like clubs etc)
But when I point this out, my logic is laughable and I am the foreign spokesperson for China.
Some people think just because the system of governance is different means one team is automatically compromised, inhumane and condemned, and other teams are all roses and petals. Talk about wilful naivety and dogma.

 

[Shine]

A little confused and annoyed that LJK got lopsided cheers by the female fans as if he were WCQ, probably by the same fans who lopsidedly cheered his opponent WCQ yesterday.
Did the fans felt sorry they mistreated Liang yesterday and tired to make up for him today? Or, they just were rooting on Liang hoping he would prevent LSD from dethroning their man the number one ranking?

Mostly depends on popularity, most ML Vs FZD matches had very few cheers for FZD. But people are individuals so someone may start a loud cheer because they don't want LSD to win, others may join because they just came to support LJK, but everyone assumes they're just lousy WCQ fanatics. Reality is often more nuanced.

 

[Shine]

you can't use cnt fan club fan girls - because

1) they have been banned by CTTA
2) they will boo the other players

How come they banned them, yet they still throng every match and cheer for the players, which is which? And where they banned randomly or for a specific reason?