China, Korea And Japan Are Top Seeds In London!

The International Table Tennis Federation released July's ranking list which determinates seeds for the Olympic Games. Doubtless, China is in the first place in the team ranking list, consequently, gets the top seed for the men and women team events. Zhang Jike, Wang Hao and Ma Long are the best ranked players in the Olympic competion, just like their women counterparts Ding Ning, Li Xiaoxia and Guo Yue, that's why China received the top seed.

The second top seed in the men event is South Korea with Joo Saehyuk, Oh Sangeun and Ryu Seungmin. Korean players had a good performance in the last world tour events, what allowed them to climb some spots in the world ranking and replaced Germany in the second place.
 
However, Germany didn't go down one spot but two because Timo Boll, Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Bastian Steger were absent from most of the last international tournaments. Therefore, Olympic silver medalists descended to the fourth place, while Japan with Jun Mizutani, Seiya Kishikawa and Koki Niwa stays in the third place.

seeds from 5th to 16th place: Singapore, Hong Kong, Austria, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, North Korea, Brazil, Great Britain, Egypt, Canada and Australia.

In the women event the second top seed is Japan with Kasumi Ishikawa, Ai Fukuhara and Sayaka Hirano. Japanese players got better ranking than Singapore, current world and Olympic runner-up. This was a surprise because Japan lost to South Korea in quarterfinals at the World Team Championships and now Ishikawa and Co. have more chances of clinching an Olympic medal. However, Japan won't have an easy task trying to beat Feng Tianwei and Co. and South Korea, its executioner in Dortmund.

Seeds from 5th to 16th place:Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands, North Korea, Austria, Spain, Poland, USA, Great Britain, Australia, Brazil and Egypt.

Photo and info. source: en.beijing2008.cn - ittf.com