Call for qualifying rounds

Press, 31 March 1989, Page 27

Call for qualifying rounds

NZPA-ReuterDortmund, West Germany

The easy progress of the top teams on the first day of the biggest-ever world table tennis championships yesterday prompted calls for the introduction of qualifying rounds.

The top nations, including China, Sweden and North and South Korea, all breezed through their opening team event group matches without dropping a set, prompting frustration for both winners and losers alike.

New Zealand, while not ranking among the table tennis giants, notched up a useful win over Lichenstein.

Peter Jackson downed Werner Gatoehl 21-7, 21-7, Alan Shewan beat Peter Frommelt 21-15, 21-7 and Malcolm Darroch accounted for Karl Bruno 21-10, 21-tl to set up the Kiwi victory. In the women’s championship, New Zealand went down 0-3 to Japan. Vanessa Balfour lost to Mika Hoshino 6-21 6-21 but Maxine Goldie made Rika Satoh work for her 21-10, 2123, 21-11 victory. In the doubles Hoshino and Satoh beat Balfour and Goldie 2111, 21-9. The West German No. 2 Steffen Fetzner, after helping the host nation defeat lowly Iceland, 5-0, in just 70 minutes in their first round-

robin match, said: “These sort of games are not interesting either for us or the spectators.” “For the next champion-, ships qualification rounds must be introduced.” His team-mate Joerg Rosskopf, bronze medallist at last year’s European championships, said the record number of entries — from 78. nations — made for a chaotic playing schedule on the 32 tables in Dortmund’s Westfaienhallen. But International Table Tennis Federation (1.T.T.F.) officials have several times considered and rejected the idea of qualifying rounds for the world championships.