Reigning women’s world champion Wang Manyu handed WTT Star Contender Goa wildcard

Panjim, Feb 15 (PTI) Reigning women’s world champion Wang Manyu was on Wednesday handed one of the eight wild cards for the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender Goa, starting here on February 27.

Besides world number three Wang, who at 24 is one of Chinese Table Tennis’ foremost talents, another upcoming Chinese star Wang Chuqin, an attacking southpaw and current men’s world number three, has also received one of the four WTT nominations.

The 22-year-old won the WTT Cup Finals last year besides three other titles in a short but impressive career.

China are a longstanding global superpower in the sport and will now have all three of their top players in each singles draw participating.

The other two WTT nominations were picked up by senior German paddler Patrick Franziska in the men’s draw and Monaco’s Xiaoxin Yang in the women’s draw.

Four wildcards, two each in the men’s and women’s singles draws, were also handed out. German world number 11 Dang Qiu and Korean world number 18 Jang Woojin picked up the men’s wildcards while exciting Puerto Rican Adriana Diaz and senior Portuguese paddler Fu Yu were handed the wildcards in the women’s singles.

The wildcards and nominations add more muscle to an already top-class field.

Besides the reigning Chinese Olympic champions, the field also boasts of current world number one players Fan Zhendong and Sun Yingsha, as well as such exciting talent as Tomakazu Harimoto and Hina Hayata of Japan and Trul Moregard of Sweden.