Panagiotis Gionis, Katerina Toliou, Yannis Sgouropoulos and Elisavet Terpou took part in the European Games in Poland. Before they were completed, Sgouropoulos, Toliou and Terpou competed in the WTT Contender table tennis in Croatia, while just on Monday the latter took part in the WTT Star Contender in Slovenia.
At the same time, Malamatenia Papadimitriou competed consecutively within a few days in the Youth Star Contender of Peru and the Youth Contender of Brazil. Grades were a target for all, however the latest men’s and women’s world rankings saw a drop for all of our aforementioned representatives.
Not because they fell short in those matches, but because they were programmed to have points deducted from last year’s good international results. So, in fact, Papadimitriou is now the second Greek in the ranking of women, who overtook Terpou.
More generally, we had the same change at number 1, where China’s Wang Chuqin took the… crown from his 142-week reigning compatriot, Fan Zhendong.
In the weekly evaluation table No. 27 since the beginning of the year, Gionis fell 25 places and was in 123rd from 98th. He did not get a point from the European Games and now shows 130 in total, as the power of 90 points he had from last year’s Europe Top 16 ended.
In a similar way, the rest of our first names in the international ranking lost points and places. For example, Sgouropoulos no longer has the points from the 2022 Mediterranean Games and the two back-to-back tournaments in Doha in the same year and moved 169 places lower! He had a slight benefit from Contender Croatia and is at number 408 with 13 total points.
Toliou, the first Greek in years, fell 43 places as she was stripped of points from last year’s positive results at the Mediterranean Games and tournaments in Doha and Singapore. This week they are at number 223, having taken just 2 points from Zagreb and none from the European Games.
Papadimitriou moved to women’s number 490 from 471. She also dropped some points from last year and now has 5. Since her participation in the youth tournaments in Peru and Brazil, however, she has done better in her age group table. In the Under 19 girls, she moved up nine places with a total of 85 points from Latin America to number 121.
Terpu went to number 552 from last week’s 401 and now shows only 3 points. He took both of them in the Croatian Contender, while the Star Contender in Slovenia, in which he was eliminated in the first qualifying round, has not been calculated for this ranking because it is still ongoing.
Another typical example of how big changes the world ranking table system brings is that after a long time Kallinikos Kreanga became the third Greek, who of course has reduced his international competitive activity to a minimum for some time now. However, because the points he got last year from a tournament in the USA are still valid, he was at number 472 with 8 points and far surpassed Giorgos Stamatouros, who from No. 476 now fell to No. 785 with a deduction of points!
As for the big change at number 1 in the men’s ranking, China’s Fan Zhendong was “dethroned” and succeeded by his compatriot Wang Chuqing. In the first ranking of July 2023, Wang now appears in the penthouse with 6,455 points, from the second place he was in for a long time.
Fan fell to number 2 with 6,255 points, who last Sunday lost in the final of the Croatian WTT Contender to his compatriot Lin Gaoyuan.
Crucially, however, he timed out his points from the 2022 Singapore Smash and was stripped.
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