Great circuit
Super Circuit is a table tennis tournament series for men held in Japan. Big prize money is an incentive for the world's best players to participate.
The tournament series was initiated by the Japanese entrepreneur Atsunao Yukawa in the late 1990s. He invites the players and provides the prize money.
Each season, 20 tournaments - all individual competitions - are held in at least 11 Japanese cities. In each tournament 32 players start in the knockout system, the first 10 places are played out. Points are awarded for those placed (1st place = 70 points, the following places 50, 35, 25, 20, 17, 16, 15 ...). For each participant, the points from all 20 tournaments are added up. This results in an overall winner at the end of the series.
The prize money consists of the points achieved and the final placement. For each point, the active person receives around 90 euros (10,000 yen). For first place in the overall ranking there is prize money of around 900,000 euros (100 million yen), second place is endowed with 70 million yen and third place with 50 million yen. The following places are also awarded a surcharge.
German players such as Steffen Fetzner , Jörg Roßkopf , Peter Franz and Timo Boll also took part in the Super Circuit . Since the prize money offered a higher earning potential than the Bundesliga clubs , the players aimed for contracts that provided for a reduced stake in the clubs and thus enabled participation in the Super Circuit.
particularities
In 2003 the final round was canceled due to SARS . The winner was Kim Taek-soo , who had been the leader until then . Of the 33 participants, Peter Franz came in 9th, Steffen Fetzner in 20th and Jörg Roßkopf , who was injured for several months, in 31st.
Some winners
- 2003: Kim Taek-soo (Korea)
- Peter Franz is ninth
- 2004: Oh Sang-eun (Korea)
- Peter Franz is ninth
swell
- Rahul Nelson: Big in Japan , DTS magazine , 2002/112 pp. 8-11