Guo Yue Is The Top Chinese Qualifier For The Pro Tour Grand Finals

The 2011 Pro Tour Grand Finals are scheduled to take place this November in London. For qualification purposes, a player should be able to attend at least six pro tournaments, or tournaments located in three different continents. With this, the top Chinese paddlers in the women’s division are still not qualified.

Among the Women's ranking, the top four places are being occupied by the Chinese players Ding Ning, Guo Yan, Liu Shiwen and Wu Yang. These four paddlers have also achieved their respective championship titles this year. However, they have only participated in four Open Tournaments. This makes them temporarily unqualified for the Grand Finals.

On the other hand, Guo Yue is the only player from China who has attenden the minimum number of required tournaments. She has already participated in seven occasions. This figure is already very big even compared to foreign players. However, her performances in those tournaments were poor. Her best so far were in the German, Slovenian and the China Open where she reached the semifinals in all three occasions. Despite participating in many Pro Tournaments, her ranking is just in the eighth place but since she has participated in more than six stations, Guo Yue is now the most promising player of China to get a ticket for the Grand Finals.

Li Xiaoxia’s condition is not very different. She has participated in five tournaments. She is the second Chinese in terms of number of tournament participations but did not get any championship title. She is only the runner up in Germany and Slovenia Opens. Her scores put her in sixth place. She is just one station short for qualification.

Feng Tianwei of Singapore is ranked in fifth place and has participated in seven tournaments. This figure gives her no doubt to enter into the Grand Finals. In the other hand, other players from Singapore like Wang Yuegu, Sayaka Hirano, Li Jiawei, and Park Mi Young all met the qualified number of stations as well. Their rankings are also in the upper part so their participation in the Grand Finals is highly anticipated.

In Japan's side, Ai Fukuhara is currently ranked in sixteenth place and has participated in five stations. In order for her to get qualified, she still needs one more.

For the doubles, each pair should be able to meet a four tournaments requirement. Ma Lin / Zhang Jike, Wang Liqin / Xu Xin, Ma Long / Wang Hao have only participated in three tournaments. If they want to be in the Grand Finals, they still have to participate in one more competition. Similarly, in Women's side, the Guo Yue / Li Xiaoxia pair has met the requirement and they are currently ranked first. It is safe to say that they are already qualified. In other Chinese pairs Ding Ning and Guo Yan are the most promising as they are currently in eighth place but have participated in only one tournament.

Photo source: people.com.cn