After the end of the accreditation, the final number of participants in the 4th PingPongParkinson World Championships in Wels is now known.
After some players cancelled their participation in the last days, 286 players from 23 TT associations finally started – 199 men and 87 women. The previous record of 157 starters in Pula last year has thus been increased by 129.
The first match day ended with a few surprises. In the individual preliminary round groups, some players who had not been rated so highly prevailed as group winners in the two highest tournament classes. In the men’s 1, this applies in particular to Kurt Pierrot (GER) and Robert Turner (IRL), who as players seeded third in each case won their group without losing a game. In the seven other groups, however, the top favourites prevailed, with only Andre Abend (GER) and Hamid Ezzat-Ahmadi (USA) of these also remaining without losing a game.
In the women’s 1 event, four of the five groups were not won by the favourites. Instead, Rie Koyama (JPN), Kerstin Wilke (GER), Silke Kind (GER) and Eva-Lena Jansson (SWE) won their groups. Only Margie Alley (USA) and Rie Koyama, World Champions of 2019 and 2022, did not lose a game. Margarete Gursch (GER), the second seed, did not make it to the main round because she could not finish her matches today due to health reasons.