Kreanga (Greece) and Korbel (Czech) Headline 2023 Edgeball Chicago International Open
by Barbara Wei
The 2023 Edgeball Chicago International Open is set for October 28 and 29 at Canlan Sports in Barrington Illinois. The annual event is well known for bringing in top international players to Chicago to compete. This year’s special guests include European table tennis legend Kalinikos Kreanga (2871), former world #7 and 4x Olympian (2004, 2008 and 2012) from Greece, and Petr Korbel (2810) 5x Olympian (1992 – 2008), Czech legend with his own Butterfly paddle to his name. Major League Table Tennis (MLTT) top player Daniel Gorak from the Florida Croc’s rounds out the top 3 in the Open Singles division.
The Edgeball Open started in 2015 with the goal of bringing world class international players to the U.S. to compete in front of American audiences. Notable players who have attended over the years include Quadri Aruna, Panagiotis Gionis and Joergen Persson. Over the years, the competition has grown from 250 in 2015 to over 420 in 2023.
Engelbert Solis, the director of the event, says that “his goal is to promote the sport of table tennis and to bring top notch players from around the globe for our table tennis community to see. The weekend is not only a competition, but a festival of table tennis. We continue with our traditional Friday night warmup on October 27 from 6 pm to 9 pm at the venue, where games and prizes await participants with interaction and play with Kreanga, Korbel and Gorak.”
Edgeball LLC partnered with Joola and local businesses to bring the table tennis community this event. With the tremendous success this year, Engelbert plans on moving to a bigger venue with 100 tables and attracting bigger corporate sponsors next year.
Join in on the excitement. Online entries accepted at Omnipong.Com until October 22nd, 2023.