ITTF Pro Tour 2009

The ITTF Pro Tour. World table tennis at its best. Find out what happened in 2009.

ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals 2009

The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) took a bold step in 1996 when they initiated a brand new premier competition ... one that was specifically designed to attract the best players in the world ...

The ITTF Pro Tour.

You can read all about it here.

But let's take a look at what happened in 2009 ...

The 2009 Pro-Tour Schedule

The 2009 ITTF Pro-Tour consisted of 14 international tournaments leading up to the Grand Finals held in Macao, China.

Although the ITTF Pro-Tour consists of men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles and women's doubles, I'll be concentrating on the main event ... the men's singles.

So what were the tournaments which made up the ITTF Pro Tour in 2009? ...

DATES	ITTF Pro Tour Events 2009	MS WINNERS
13-17 Jan	Slovenian Open (Velenje)	Hao Shuai
21-25 Jan	Danish Open (Frederikshavn)	Ma Long
11-15 Feb	Kuwait Open (Kuwait City)	Ma Long
17-21 Feb	Qatar Open (Doha)	Timo Boll
11-15 Mar	Indian Open (Indore)	MA Liang
19-22 Mar	German Open (Bremen)	Timo Boll
27-31 May	Belarus Open (Minsk)	Pete Zolt
3-7 June	China Open (Suzhou)	Ma Long
11-14 June	Japan Open (Wakayama)	Oh Sang Eun
7-10 July	Morocco Open (Rabat)	Vladimir Samsonov
12-16 Aug	China Open (Tianjin)	Wang Hao
19-23 Aug	Korean Open (Seoul)	Jun Mizutani
28 Oct- 1 Nov	English Open (Sheffield)	Ma Long
25-29 Nov	Polish Open (Warsaw)	Timo Boll

Let's take a look at what prize money was on offer ...

Prize money

The prize money varied from tournament to tournament, but the overall purse for 2009 was $2,783,880.

Some of the events were designated as premier events, such as Kuwait and Qatar, and they both offered a total purse of $300,000 ... with the men's and women's singles winners receiving $30,000 each.

The top event, the China Open in June 2009, offered a total purse of $330,000 ... and the men's and women's singles winners received $33,000 each.

The Pro Tour Grand Finals offered a total prize fund of $365,000 ... with the men's and women's singles winners collecting $40,000 each and the men's and women's doubles winners collecting $20,000.

So who qualified for the prestigious end of season grand finals?

The Grand Finals

The Grand Finals were held in Macao, China from 7-10 January 2010 and with all the Pro-Tour events completed, the players who had accumulated the most points in the men's singles were as follows:

Rank	Elig	Points	Events	Continents	Player
1		99938	5	2	MA Long	CHN
2		78000	6	2	BOLL Timo	GER
3		44375	6	2	HAO Shuai	CHN
4		43250	5	2	MA Lin	CHN
	NE	39000	3	1	WANG Hao	CHN
5		31188	5	2	WANG Liqin	CHN
		29938	6	2	MIZUTANI Jun	JPN
6		26938	6	2	OH Sang Eun	KOR
7		20875	6	2	JOO Se Hyuk	KOR
8		19595	7	2	BAUM Patrick	GER
9		17032	7	2	OVTCHAROV Dimitrij	GER
10		16375	5	2	ZHANG Jike	CHN
11		15313	5	2	XU Xin	CHN
		15190	3	3	SAMSONOV Vladimir	BLR
12		14282	7	2	STEGER Bastian	GER
13		12844	6	2	SUSS Christian	GER
14		11220	8	2	CHEN Weixing	AUT
	NE	10000	2	1	ZHANG Chao	CHN
		9938	6	2	MAZE Michael	DEN
		9438	5	2	YOSHIDA Kaii	JPN
15		9125			CHUANG Chih-Yuan	TPE
16	Invitation place for a Home Association player				LEONG Kin Wa	MAC

Although Wang Hao and Zhang Chao had accumulated sufficient Grand Prix points, they didn't meet the additional qualifying criteria of competing in at least five tournaments or playing on at least three continents.

So unfortunately they weren't eligible to take part in the prestigious end of season grand finals.

Additionally, Jun MIZUTANI, Vladimir SAMSONOV, Michael MAZE and Kaii YOSHIDA elected not to take part.

So, here are the results of the ...

2009 ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals

Round One

Winner	Result	Loser
MA Long	4-1	OVTCHAROV Dimitrij
SUSS Christian	4-1	OH Sang Eun
JOO Se Hyuk	4-0	CHEN Weixing
ZHANG Jike	4-1	MA Lin

HAO Shuai	4-1	CHUANG Chih-Yuan
WANG Liqin	4-0	LEONG Kin Wa
STEGER Bastian	4-2	BAUM Patrick
XU Xin	4-0	BOLL Timo