Table tennis returns to Kazan at national level

We are waiting for a table tennis festival in Kazan

The individual and team championship starting in Kazan is the most representative competition in the table tennis program, corresponding to the world championship. First, there was a team tournament with 16 men's and women's teams. Then, the 64 best participants will compete for medals in individual categories (singles, duets, mixed). That is, table tennis starts are similar to classic tennis, except for two components. Firstly, there was no qualification among the participants, which is the case in tennis. Here, one of the 64 participants can only be replaced due to injury or illness. Secondly, instead of a qualification tournament, there are team tournaments, which are not available in tennis. Thus, the time dates of the competitions are almost the same. There is another main difference: all the strongest athletes in Russia will compete in table tennis. Amateur table tennis player Konstantin told Realnoe Vremya’s correspondent about the main dates of the tournament and described the playing and personal style of the country's leading tennis players. This interest may also be due to the fact that table tennis is one of the most popular sports for betting in bookmakers, with only football in first place.

There is another fact that distinguishes the Kazan national championship from last year. Now tickets for the national championship are actively being bought up, costing from 150 to 300 rubles, while last year's championship in Saint Petersburg was held without spectators, coinciding in date with the tragedy at Crocus.

Why the host team will not compete in the men's tournament

There will be only one Tatarstan team in the team tournament, the women's team. Returning to the fact that the strongest players are taking part in the competition, the men's part of the republic's team did not make it into the top 16. This, of course, is a powerful blow to the reputation of the republic's table tennis federation. If we consider the 2008 Summer Universiade as the first major Russian tournament held in Kazan, then even then Tatarstan athletes led by Marsel Valeyev and Elza Sharipova took part in the Ak Bure sports complex in full force.

Even in the list of participants in the individual tournament, Tatarstan athletes are not listed among the 59 strongest players. However, the Russian Table Tennis Federation has left five vacancies for men and seven vacancies for women. It can be assumed that Aynur Sabirov can take one of the men's vacancies. As for women, we have a solid representation. At the end of January, Tatarstan hosted the Volga Federal District Championship, where Yelena Abaymov, Yekaterina Zironova, Svetlana Kudryashova and Svetlana Nartova successfully performed. Among the winners were also Anastasia Stepanova and Svetlana Shadrina, but they are not among the participants of the Russian championship yet, but there are two more representatives of Tatarstan, Darina Nizamova and Maria Taylakova. In other words, there are already six participants in the individual competition, which easily forms a team and three duets in women's pairs. We see one potential mixed with Aynur Sabirov, and the rest, presumably, will be created with the participation of athletes from other regions. For example, at the last competition, Abayimova became a silver medallist, performing with Sadi Ismailov.

He was also among the winners of the Volga Federal District championship, as it seems to us, Tatarstan, since he grew up in Saba District, where his father and older brother live, working as coaches. But Ismailov now represents Orenburg. Like many of his other partners in recent victories as part of the men's teams of Tatarstan. The reasons for leaving are said to be financial, although the departure of male leaders somehow coincided with the influx of strong female tennis players into the Tatarstan team. We even won the Volga Federal District with traditionally competitive teams from Bashkortostan, Orenburg, Chuvashia, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara regions, despite the absence of the number one tennis player Taylakova.

Women's team of Tatarstan is the main contender for victory

Tatarstan's expansion into teams from other regions is comparable to the situation 15 years ago, when young athletes Vlasova, Нуrmakova, Lebedeva, Savelyeva were invited, and Kazan consistently held the European Student Championships in the old Sports Palace and the 2010 European Junior and Youth Championships in the same Boxing and Table Tennis Centre. Incidentally, among the participants at that time were Muscovites Yana Noskova and Anna Blazhko, who got married in Kazan, becoming Bikbayeva, and, apparently, moved away from sports.

Taylakova grew up in Kirovo-Chepetsk, until recently represented Samara, for which she played together with Yekaterina Zironova. Same Nizamova, a student of the Rodina table tennis club from Arkhangelsk, and here we can draw parallels with the recent Russian Cross-Country Skiing Championship where former Pomors also actively replenished the Tatarstan team. Svetlana Kudryashova (Mokhnachyova) previously played for Krasnodar, Svetlana Nartova for Voronezh. In this regard, 48-year-old Elena Abaimov is an example of sports longevity and team loyalty.

In principle, this is one of the trends in Russian table tennis, when a club system is created and club championships of the country are also held, which allows luring strong players from other regions, who potentially become members of the national teams of the republics. Lev Katsman was born in Khabarovsk, where his father heads the Jewish community centre, played in Arkhangelsk, and now represents Moscow. Sadi Ismailov transited through Tajikistan and Saba and ended up in Orenburg. Elizabet Abrakhamyan was born in Yerevan, but plays for Nizhny Novgorod. Kazanochka Elza Sharipova, having married Alexander Shibayev from Yaroslavl, contributed to the fact that he represented Tatarstan at the 2016 Olympics. In this regard, Vladimir Bobrovnikov, a member of the Donetsk People's Republic team, who has never played for any other region in his sports career, can be called an antipode.

When Matytsin opened the ski championship, he inspected the Table Tennis Centre

The last major international start for our athletes to date was the Olympics in Tokyo, and among the successful ones, we can recall the European Team Championship in Romania, where the Russians came in second. In addition to Shibayev, Maxim Grebnev (Leningrad Region), Vladimir Sidorenko (Saint Petersburg), Lev Katsman and Kirill Skachkov (both Moscow) will now come to Kazan. But the circle of contenders for victory in the team tournament looks much wider. Here are Moscow Region (Krivosheyev, Lakeyev, Mutygullin), Orenburg (Ivonin, Ismailov), and Sverdlovsk Region (Akhmetsafin, Paikov). It is interesting that two of this list — Akhmetsafin and Ismailov — are still in the top five tennis players in Tatarstan, along with Vitaly Murzin, Marat Sultanov and Ainur Sabirov. Just as the Russian Ski Championship in Kazan continued with the Kazan Ski Marathon, the Russian Table Tennis Championship will continue in the republic. From 27 to 30 March, Bogatye Saby will host an international tournament with the participation of guests from Belarus, Iran, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Among women, the list is headed by the number one in the Russian Table Tennis Federation's rating, Maria Taylakova, in addition to her, Valeria Kotsyur, Yana Noskova, Valeria Shcherbatykh, Arina Slautina and Yekaterina Zironova are also registered, as well as Denis Ivonin from the top ten according to the rating of the Russian Table Tennis Federation.

Another similarity: the participation of former Minister of Sports of Russia Oleg Matytsin in the opening of the ski championship. As we expected, the representative mission was combined with business, since Oleg Matytsin checked the readiness of the Boxing and Table Tennis Centre, so to speak, personally, by holding a sparring session. In addition to him, the president of the Russian Table Tennis Federation Alexander Babakov is expected to arrive at the championship, as well as other VIPs directly connected with table tennis.