Teams Selections for WTTC Osaka

[zachary]

I'm 'importing' a discussion from the newsgroup here. I would be most interested to hear what people think about the selection process for Teams at Osaka.

This is roughly how it functions in the US: Team selection is basically made on the basis of ONE tournament (the national team trials). there is a preliminary round, with some players being seeded out. Eventually, the main round is played as a 12-person round-robin.

This year, things were a little weird (for example, a top player hurt himself at the tournment and had to withdraw and is now not on the team), and some people, including at least one participant in the Trials, recently posted to the newsgroup saying that this might not be the best way to do the selection. An alternative suggestion might be a 'tour' format like the ITTF Pro-tour, where one has to earn points by competing in certain tournaments throughout the whole year.

My question is: How are Team selections done in other countries? What are the advantages or disadvantages of other ways of doing this?

[ttworld]

I was once told that the U.S. and Canada were the only countries in the world that had a team trials for the worlds. I'm not sure if this is true, but I do know that we are one of the very few countries that does not have any provision for sending our best players if one of them is injured during the Trials, as happened this year (to Todd Sweeris). Anyone here have any knowledge about how other countries do it?

-Larry Hodges

[zachary]

The German Team has been nominated:

Men
Jörg Roßkopf
Timo Boll
Torben Wosik
Peter Franz
Lars Hielscher
Bastian Steger (reserve)

Women
Jie Schöpp
Nicole Struse
Elke Schall
Tanja Hain-Hofmann*
Katrin Meyerhöfer*
Jessica Göbel*
*only 2 of these 3 players will make the final team, depending on their performace at the Croatian Open and the WTTC-training-camp.

Here's the real interesting news:
Zoltan Fejer-Konnerth has been deliberately left out because of mysterious 'disciplinary' problems even though he has been playing quite well lately (he was eliminated yesterday in the quarters of the German Nationals, but so was Hielscher).

For the sake of discussion, do most people agree that it's a good idea to include 'subjective' factors like motivation and discipline in the selection process? I could imagine potential problems with this... Larry: do you remember cases where someone was left out of the US Team because of something like this?

Another question: how come Christina Fischer, the Women's Champion, is not on the team? is she retiring from competition?

> For the sake of discussion, do most people agree that
> it's a good idea to include 'subjective' factors like
> motivation and discipline in the selection process? I
> could imagine potential problems with this... Larry: do
> you remember cases where someone was left out of
> the US Team because of something like this?

The U.S. always has trials, so unless a player does something to merit his removal from the team (hasn't happened), whoever makes the team through the trials is on the team. In the past, there usually was a "coach's pick" both in case someone is injured or sick and can't compete in the trials, and to allow the coach to bring in an up-and-coming player. This year they didn't do that.

-Larry Hodges

[Rahul Nelson]

@ zachary
Christina Fischer has made up her decision to retire from the national team almost two years ago. She wouldn’t even change her mind if she was asked to play in Osaka, since she now fully concentrates on her career in a bank.

Rahul Nelson