Nelson hosting championships

Canterbury’s Yi-Sien Lin will headline the feature open men’s singles event when Table Tennis Nelson hosts the South Island championships this weekend.

Lin is among the 90 players contesting 46 events this weekend, with a total of 392 matches to be played over the two days of competition, starting at Saxton Stadium tomorrow.

Lin is ranked ninth in New Zealand, with his biggest challenges expected to come from North Shore’s Yuhan Gao (11th), Manawatu’s Matthew Ball (12th), Canterbury’s Hongyi Li (13th) and Auckland’s Nathan Xu (14th).

Nelson’s highest-ranked competitor is Daniel Astle (66th), although Simon Hoey-Burns is also returning to competitive action after a lengthy absence, and isn’t nationally ranked. However, he intends using the event as a stepping stone for the national championships to be held in Christchurch in October.

Nelson are sending two senior teams to the nationals.

The open men’s singles competition starts on Saturday at 3pm, with the semifinals scheduled for 8.45pm, followed by the final at around 9.15pm.

Canterbury’s Jenny Hung is the top seed in the open women’s singles event and is ranked fourth nationally.

The open women’s singles is a round robin event which starts at 3pm and finishes around 5pm.