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Mike Chan

The World Table Tennis Finals will get a new home this year, with the season-ending showpiece moving from Hong Kong Coliseum to Kai Tak Arena.
While the WTT has yet to officially announce the move for December’s tournament, government sources and the local table tennis association both told the South China Morning Post it would happen.
City officials had previously said the Coliseum would switch to prioritising concerts. Still, Tony Yue Kwok-leung, chairman of the Hong Kong, China Table Tennis Association, said moving venues would be a challenge.
“Our experience from last year was quite good,” Yue said. “Both the WTT and us like the Coliseum, and we do not have to design the venue layout from scratch again had we been able to stay there.
“We are going to try something new. Kai Tak is a new arena, so it is all good in terms of infrastructure. I also believe fans are now used to visiting Kai Tak, so transport should not be an issue.
“The one-table set up will be retained, and we need to figure out how to utilise the arena in the best possible way. We need to draw up a few plans before deciding on the best one. It’s going to be a challenging task, but we are up for it.”

Yue also said they would study other similar events at Kai Tak Arena, such as snooker’s World Grand Prix, and could install practice tables for the players, as well as VIP areas for guests inside the 10,000-seat venue.
“Sports and entertainment cannot be separated nowadays, and we certainly do not want to sell those tickets if the spectators’ views are to be obstructed,” he said.
Last year, the inaugural WTT Finals drew a total of 87,000 spectators over 10 sessions at the Coliseum across five days. This year the tournament will run for six days from December 8 to 13.
If the table tennis event is to mirror its snooker counterpart, the number of seats available could potentially see a drastic drop from 10,000 at the Coliseum to just around 6,000 at Kai Tak, meaning fans worldwide, largely from China, may have to battle for tickets.
But Yue declined to speculate if a potential drop in total seat numbers would trigger an increase in ticket prices.
Last December, Japanese top player Tomokazu Harimoto and Chinese star player Wang Manyu were crowned the men’s and women’s singles champions in Hong Kong.
The US$1,300,000 event, however, was overshadowed by the withdrawals of world No 1 players Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, both of whom forfeited their respective semi-finals because they said they were injured.
The loss of the two biggest stars in the sport has prompted the WTT to extend the event by one day and cancel the group phase for mixed doubles to slash the number of games for players involved.


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Nearly 90,000 fans watched last year’s WTT Finals over the course of five days at Hong Kong Coliseum. Photo: WTT

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Sun Yingsha (left) and Wang Manyu (right) took graduation photos with faculty as members of the undergraduate class of 2019 at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Photo: Weibo

Sun Yingsha scored 92.04 in her evaluation to secure a place at Tsinghua University. Photo: Weibo

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World Table Tennis’ season-ending tournament is moving to Kai Tak Arena, but new venue could see loss of thousands of seats


World Table Tennis’ season-ending tournament is moving to Kai Tak Arena, but new venue could see loss of thousands of seats.


Tomokazu Harimoto

Wang Chuqin

Sun Yingsha

Wang Manyu

WTT Finals switch leaves Hong Kong table tennis bosses facing ‘challenging task’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}World Table Tennis’ season-ending tournament is moving to Kai Tak Arena, but new venue could see loss of thousands of seats

World Table Tennis’ season-ending tournament is moving to Kai Tak Arena, but new venue could see loss of thousands of seats