Erke Austria Open 2008 Report by Saul Weinstein, IU

November 29 – November 2

As usual, I left home a few days early to vacation and acclimate, getting over jet lag ahead of the tournament.  This was just as well as my jet lag was as bad as I can recall.  I arrived Friday morning, and, by Monday morning, started feeling better.  By Tuesday, I felt back to 100% myself.  Good thing the tournament did not start until Wednesday!  Especially as my first match Wednesday and another Thursday were BB evaluation matches……..

This trip, I rented a car instead of taking train and taxi back and forth from Frankfurt.  Sixti has the lowest rents I could find.  Keep in mind that unless you rent an upper level vehicle (VERY expensive!), most cars here are manual transmission!  Driving the autobahn and getting from place to place proved easy using my GPS with Europe maps.  I even was able to preprogram addresses at home ahead of the trip, saving trouble and time on arrival.  Navigating without GPS would have been very difficult, especially in smaller cities with very irregular streets.

I spent time at the Hotel Zubrucke table tennis resort in Grenzau, Germany.  This is my third visit and I continue to enjoy the facilities and table tennis training.  Very restful, out in the country, and reasonably priced.

A First Bundesliga match, held in the hotel's table tennis gym, highlighted my mini - vacation.  With players like Blaszczyk, Pavelka, Fejer-Koneth, and Matsudaira, quality was good.  One notable trend was close attention by officials to rubber / sponge thickness (4mm limit).  Matsudaira lost badly playing a borrowed paddle.  Pavelka apparently did not learn from this and, next match, the same happened to him.  It was disappointing that players and coaches were not paying more attention to this requirement, especially as ITTF has made clear recently this is a sensitive enforcement area.

On Tuesday I traveled to Salzburg, Austria.  Flights even from Frankfurt, one of the biggest air transport hubs in Europe, were limited to one airline flying commuter turboprops.  Not my favorite way of getting there but beats driving or even a relatively long train ride with change of trains.  My flight was popular with umpires and players alike.  On arrival, we were greeted by locals with name signs and vehicles to get us to our hotels, which were about a 15 minute drive away.  The umpires were all at a hotel across the street from the venue.  Nice, no shuttle bus! 

The umpire meeting that evening was relatively short, about 30 minutes.  The Referee did not read all of the notes and instructions he had previously e - mailed everyone, just went over high points and some key differences.  This was an experienced umpire crew, all but two BB or BBC.

Breakfast was served in the hotel, a varied buffet of meats, cheeses, juices, cereals, etc.  Lunch and dinner were at the venue and nicer than most previous experience.

The venue had one playing hall with eight courts.  There were five additional practice courts in the next connected convention area.  This was enough as the field was rather small.  Only 62 women entered so, after 32 seeds, the remaining all “qualified”, playing solely for main draw position.  With over 90 men, some missed the main draw so qualifying was more intense.  The general theory about the small field is that many players were tired after Olympics, Europe Championships, etc. and despite the highest Pro Tour level prize money (first place $20,000 USD), they chose to rest instead.  No Kreanga, no Samsonov, sigh.

The venue featured excellent court lighting.  The hall has moveable, adjustable long beams across the ceiling.  Multiple spot lights were hung from these beams over each individual table, supplementing main hall ceiling lighting and ensuring strong light.  It's nice NOT hearing any complaints about lighting!

Play opening day Wednesday included men's and woman's teams, MS and WS qualifications.  It was about the quietest first day / qualifying anyone could recall, with a relatively open schedule, no rush, and low match count for umpires.  My umpire team (with Denis Vigeant from Canada) worked one four match team tie, was on standby for one MS qualification round, and finished with one MS round.  That's all! 

Thursday, our schedule started 3:30 PM, allowing a nice visit to downtown Salzburg via a 20 minute bus ride from in front of the hotel.  Then, three matches and done.

Friday, we were scheduled for six MS and WS main draw singles matches and ended up doing five, with one filled in by a reserve umpire pair.   Our last match was a nail biting seven games, with five of those games in “deuce”. 

Saturday, we had only one WS round of 16 match in the morning and the remainder of the day free.  Denis and a few other umpires went sightseeing.  I stayed, rested, and watched a few more matches.

Sunday, Denis and I worked a MS semi final, Boll (GER) vs. Baum (GER).  The quality was excellent but the match was one - sided due to Boll’s dominance.  Baum is playing well, given his upset of Schlager (AUS) in the quarters but still no contest.  In the WS semi final preceding MS semis, all present enjoyed an fine match between two defenders, Li Qian (POL) and Li Jie  (NED).  As speculated, the ladies got to expedite system in the second game and since I was one of the reserve umpires for the match, I ended up counting strokes for the remaining four plus tightly contested games.  The Austrian spectators seemed knowledgeable of the thirteen stroke limit and cheered the receiver both times this happened.

Racquet Testing / Control
The organizers provided racquet testing and control for sampled matches throughout the course of play.  There was a testing area close by the main hall (about one minute walk through a hallway into the practice court section).  Testing included a standard ENEZ box, an additional more sensitive model, and an electronic device to measure rubber / sponge thickness.  Officials also checked width of the information on the rubber (name, brand, etc.) against previously measured unglued samples to detect stretched rubber from gluing and boosting.

The additional more sensitive “sniffer” is said to be capable of detecting “boosters” which can evade the current ENEZ model.  However, it is also said to be several times more expensive.  Two table tennis companies are providing electronic thickness measuring devices in prototype stage for evaluation by ITTF.  This was also in use at the Bundesliga match discussed above. 

It appears that there is a technology race between players and their rubber / sponge treatments and ITTF and it’s testing devices.  At least two players suffered disqualification during the tournament.  Both men did not show for pre match testing and, per the rules, were allowed to play with equipment of their choice.  However, that equipment was subject to post match testing and, when found not in compliance, disqualification resulted.  One of those players was Chen Weixing (AUS), one of the top seeds.