World Table Tennis chief says successful Finals debut in Hong Kong ‘beyond expectations’
CEO Steve Dainton says tournament could not have finished ‘in a better way’ despite injuries to China stars Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha
Hong Kong delivered a WTT Finals “beyond my expectations”, the head of table tennis’ governing body has said after the city concluded its first staging of the year-end tournament.
Steve Dainton, the World Table Tennis CEO, believed there was the potential to host an “even better” event when it returned to Hong Kong in 12 months.
Even the withdrawals through injury of Chinese world No 1s Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in their respective men’s and women’s singles semi-finals could not dampen Dainton’s enthusiasm for the event, which wrapped up on Sunday night.
“I don’t think we could have finished the end of the year in a better way,” he said. “I’m going to have a very, very good holiday break knowing that we’ve had a wonderful event at the end of this year here in Hong Kong.”
And the Australian said the city, which last hosted a senior international table tennis event in 2019, had outperformed some of the major rivals in mainland China and around the world.
“When we’ve gone to the big cities in China like Beijing and Chongqing, or in other international cities, it’s taken us a few years to build up the event to its full capacity and full potential,” the 47-year-old said.