Japan’s Ai Fukuhara, famous for bursting into tears on national television as a toddler, has been given top billing at the world table tennis championships before even pinging a ball in anger.
The 20-year-old brought practice to a standstill on Tuesday, spending more than two hours tossing balls high into the air to see how the lights at arena would affect her serve.
Japanese camera crews tripped over themselves to film Fukuhara, who has little realistic chance of disrupting China’s dominance at the championships in Yokohama.
PHOTO: AFP
“I was working out exactly where to throw the ball into the lights,” Fukuhara was quoted as saying in Japanese newspapers yesterday. “I’m beginning to get excited about the championships.”
Fukuhara will take center stage, with one of the courts already being christened “Ai-chan’s Court” (Little Ai’s Court).
Once the darling of the Japanese media, Fukuhara appeared regularly on TV shows as a child where she would throw tantrums and wail out loud if she lost a point to celebrities.
Earlier this year, eight-year-old Miu Hirano eclipsed Fukuhara’s record by becoming the youngest player to appear at the Japanese championships.
Fukuhara, Japan’s flag-bearer at the Beijing Olympics last August, was 10 when she first competed at national level in 1998.
Hirano, who can barely see over the net, and has to be coaxed away from her mother’s side to play matches, is not appearing at the world championships.
In qualifying action yesterday Welshman Adam Robertson defeated Dino Suarez of Ecuador.
Robertson coasted to an 11-2, 11-2, 12-10, 11-6 win over Suarez to reach today’s first round of the tournament.
Crystal Huang of the US advanced to the first round of the women’s singles with an 11-6, 11-4, 11-3, 11-1 win over Armenia’s Tatevik Yengibaryan.
China is expected to dominate the championships after winning all the table tennis gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
Chinese players will be the top-four seeds in both the men’s and women’s singles.
The championships feature men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
Taiwan on Friday beat Australia 11-0 at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Taiwan are represented at the tournament by Taoyuan’s Gueishan Elementary School, who won the Asia-Pacific regional tournament to earn the trip to the US. Australia are represented by the Hills Red team from Sydney. Taiwan advanced to a game tomorrow against Santa Clara, representing Cuba, who won 4-1 against the Czech Republic’s Brno, the Europe-Africa regional qualifiers. Australian starter Sayre Howick had a tough time controlling his pitches at Volunteer Stadium, one of which allowed Taiwan to open their account. They scored six in the inning and
Marloon Herrera was crying — happy tears. With Cuba trailing in the fifth inning of its Little League World Series (LLWS) opener on Thursday, Herrera lined a two-run double to give his team the lead. When the Czech Republic, representing Europe-Africa, made a pitching change, he ran over to give his third base coach a hug. Cuba went on to win 4-1. It was the first game at this year’s tournament for both sides, but it was also the beginning of Cuba’s second appearance in the series ever — and it was emotional. “You breathe baseball in Cuba,” manager Everaldo Machado said on
World Boxing, an international amateur boxing organization formed last year after a breakdown in relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Association (IBA), has announced the admission of Taiwan, along with four other nations, into its growing list of members. In a statement released on its Web site on Friday, the Swiss- based organization said that in addition to Taiwan, admitted as Chinese Taipei, Bhutan, Ecuador, Fiji and Pakistan have also become members. The new members all have well-rounded national and international boxing programs as well as transparency in the leadership and management of their national boxing programs,
COOLED DOWN: Du Plessis apologized after the fight for comments about his Nigerian-born opponent, after Adesanya said he planned to take the belt back to Africa South African Dricus du Plessis yesterday took a flurry of body hits across four rounds before defeating Israel Adesanya by submission to retain his middleweight championship at UFC 305. After scoring some early takedowns, Du Plessis (22-2) had to withstand a flurry of body strikes from Adesanya through the middle rounds, which appeared to be taking a toll on the 30-year-old South African as the fight progressed. However, a left hook followed by three rights helped bring Adesanya down, giving Du Plessis the opening he wanted as he swiftly got the choke hold that forced the Nigerian-born New Zealander to tap out