Tokyo 2021 Olympic Seeding Race Post-#RESTART Update
With all 2020 ITTF International events being completed (except for WTT Macao, which is an exhibition event and won’t affect rankings), now is a good time to give an update on the Tokyo Olympic Seeding Race. As I have mentioned in an earlier
post, this will only take into account effective WR points for July 2021, so only points earned from tournaments played from July 2019 to June 2021 will be valid (plus the latest WTTC and WTTTC played). In calculating for Olympic seeding, one must remove events that transpired from May 2019 to June 2019 from the calculation. Notably, the 2019 China Open, HK Open, and Japan Open points will expire by July 2021 and will not be counted for Olympic seeding.
On the women’s side, SYS has taken a slight lead over Ito in the race for the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] seed. This race is especially interesting for this Olympics because teammates can now be drawn in the same half, so China would prefer to secure the top 2 seeds to avoid this possibility from happening. The race for the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] seed is also closely contested between Ishikawa, Cheng I-Ching and Feng Tianwei. While it seems that Ishikawa has a sizeable lead over FTW and CIC, it is actually not a comfortable lead because the WTTTC WR points hasn’t been taken account yet. Both FTW and CIC get major point gains during team events as their team’s “aces.” FTW’s early exits in both the World Cup and the ITTF Finals do hurt her though, and this puts her a bit behind the other two players, but she is not completely out of the race.
Next year’s World Team Table Tennis Championships will play a big part in determining how the seeding race goes. The WR points earned from this tournament will not be influenced by individual performances alone because WR points earned can be skewed by the number of matches a player plays. Remember, a player gets 250 WR points for each match win regardless of the quality of the opponent, so a player who has to play more matches will have a better opportunity to raise her WR in this tournament. How the teams determine their lineups, how many teams will be allowed to participate, and how teammates perform will all affect the total number of matches played. For example, in past team events, China has traditionally rotated its players, which spreads the WR points amongst 5 players and makes it difficult for one player to get a lot of ranking points. LSW and DN both only got 1,500 WR points in the 2018 WTTTC, which is lower than what the No. 1 player of other countries usually earn, which is an average of around 1,750-2,250 WR points. It will be interesting to see if China maintains this lineup strategy given that it may affect Olympic Seeding. Furthermore, China usually wins team matches 3-0, which means their players usually only play once per team match. Compare this to a team heavily reliant on an “Ace” such as Chinese Taipei, where CIC usually needs to play 2 singles matches each team match to secure the victory, and you can see why FTW and CIC often gain a lot in WR points after every team event.
Traditionally, the WTTTC is played with 24 teams, with 4 groups of 6 teams in the group stage. However, there is news that the 2021 WTTTC in Busan may adopt either a 16-team or 32-team WTTTC. How ITTF chooses to go forward will inevitably affect the number of teams in each group, which may increase or decrease the total number of matches played by each player.
Lastly, given COVID-19 is still a prevailing problem, we must recognize the possibility that the WTTTC next year doesn’t push through. If this indeed happens, the 2018 WTTTC WR points will still remain valid for the Olympics. Here is the table of how the standings will look like should this happen. As you will see, Ito overtakes SYS and CIC overtakes Ishikawa because both Ito and CIC had large gains in WR points with gains of 2000 and 2250 WR points respectively in the 2018 WTTTC.
Disclaimer: I am doing updates on the seeding race since I personally find it fun to compute WR and some may enjoy knowing the match-up possibilities in future tournaments, which is influenced by seeding and WR. However, I personally believe that fighting for seeding should not be at the expense of training to hone one’s skills. In the end, favorable draws matter little if one has not developed the necessary skills to defeat the opponents in front of her. I doubt Ito will be pleased if she meets China only in the final just to lose in the gold medal match. Neither will it matter if Ishikawa avoids China until the SF if she ends up losing in the earlier rounds. In fact, I don’t think CTTA is even prioritizing Olympic Seeding because if it did, it would be in its best interest for SYS to beat CM in one or both of their matchups in the #RESTART since SYS needs the WR points more than CM.
Other updates:
- The German WT seems to have a firm hold of the third seed given Han Ying’s good performance in the World Cup and Solja’s win vs FTW in the ITTF Finals. Han Ying will also be eligible to participate in the next WTTTC, so her WR can only go up.
- The Chinese Taipei WT edges closer to the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] seed given Chen Szu-Yu’s World Cup performance but the race is still too close to call. If HK’s 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] player in Lee Ho Ching can maintain a sizeable gap in front of Taiwan’s 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] player in Cheng Hsien-Tzu, or if Minnie Soo can overtake Chen Szu-Yu, HK can take the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] seed.
- The German Men’s team looks primed to hold on to the number 2 seed with Franziska’s WR point gain more than offsetting Boll’s point loss. Japan is at 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] and Korea at 4[SUP]th[/SUP].