Like every Tuesday, the International Table Tennis Federation has now released the tables for week 32 and there it has calculated the points from the Olympic tournament, regardless of whether it will be completed for all events next Saturday. Panagiotis Giionis got 90 points by placing in positions 17-32 of the singles and climbed to number 85 from 107 of the last weeks.
It took a while for him to be this high and, of course, there is substance in the fact that he quickly returned to the top 100 in the world. It should be added that China’s Fan Zhendong, new “gold” Olympic singles champion, got 2,000 points and rose to number 2 (out of 4), while Sweden’s Truls Meregaard, “silver” in the same event, returned with plus 1,400 points to the top 10 (at number 10 of 16).
The results at the South Paris Arena 4 singles were clear that they would bring significant changes in the world ranking. Gionis, who made history in general for Greek sports with the record sixth Olympic participation, defeated Canadian Lee Edward in the first round with 4-0 sets and was defeated in the second by the American Kanak Tza 4-2.
Thus, he collected 90 points and reached 279 in total. He benefited by 22 places and “climbed” to number 85. He deserves to be much higher, but as is known, the changes of the last years in the evaluation system affected his own rank quite a bit.
The Chinese Wang Chuqin remains at the top of the men’s table by a margin, even though in Paris he was a surprise victim in the second round by Meregord, while the Frenchman Felix Lebrun, who “won” 700 points with the Olympic bronze medal, remains fifth. Tza, who eliminated Gionis and entered the round of 16 with a total of three wins, made the biggest rise to number 70 from 120.
In the women’s table, China’s singles silver medalist Sun Yingsha maintains a clear lead, while Paris winner Yi Chen Meng rose to number 2 from last week’s number 4. They also got 1,400 and 2,000 points respectively.
The Japanese Hina Hayata continues at number 5 after the bronze medal in the Olympic tournament. The Austrian Sofia Polkanova, the only one from Europe to advance to the singles quarterfinals, entered the top 15 and in particular moved to number 14 (from 23), while Pyong Song Gong from North Korea, who was also ranked 5- 8, rose 111 places to number 57.
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