by Ian Marshall, Editor
No we are not going to witness the equivalent of the 1980 European Championships in Berne, when at reputed odds of 1000:1, England’s John Hilton won the men’s singles title.
Equally we will not see the efforts another Englishman, Fred Perry who won the men’s singles title at the 1929 World Championships in Budapest, when according to legend it was the first tournament in which he had ever competed. The story, true of false, was that previously in local tournaments he had played a few rounds and had then disappeared favouring tennis.
Throughout this century, the winner and the finalists in the men’s singles event at a World Championships have on the whole come from the top four names; the notable exceptions being in 2003 when Austria’s Werner Schlager beat Korea Republic’s Joo Saehyuk to secure the title and in 2015 in Suzhou when, China’s Fang Bo, at the time the no.13 seed, lost to colleague Ma Long in the title decider.
Now that is the name that suggests things might be very different in Budapest. He is the no.11 seed; history suggests that the odds are stacked massively against such seeded player progressing to win the title. In fact I cannot find any instance when such an occurrence has happened.
However, a new world ranking system, absence from the international scene through injury, has created an intriguing situation.
A 15 year old boy in the guise of Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto is the no.4 seed behind the Chinese trio of Fan Zhendong, Xu Xin and Lin Gaoyuan; his efforts in recent times have been stupendous but in the last two years since he reached to quarter-finals in Düsseldorf the video cameras have been working.
Even though two years older, more experienced, as he is now well-known, could the task to repeat the Düsseldorf success be even greater?
Meanwhile for Ma Long, who successfully defended his title in Düsseldorf, could another number one be added to his seeding; three in row. Now would that be an upset, the no.11 seed completing a hat-trick of titles, it would be history.?
