Who Should Compete in
the 2019 Pan Am Games - Nicholas Tio or Victor Liu
· The current ITTF method to calculate world
ranking awards participation a lot. If a ranking is truly world class, say top
100 in the world, it makes sense. When the ranking is outside of a couple
hundreds, it may not accurately reflect the playing level. Reasonable full-time
professional who play enough tournaments can get that ranking. In this case,
Nicholas Tio had played 12 ITTF ranked tournaments since 2018. He should have
broken 200 but he didn't. Victor hadn't played any adults events in the last 6 months.
Therefore, Victor's world ranking doesn't reflect his true playing level.
·
Nicholas Tio Head-to-head records (Singles-only)
to USA players at the 2018 US Open.
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Lost to TRAN Michael Minh who is 869 in the
world in May 2019.
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Won over MAHAJAN Mudit who is under 15 whose May
2019 U15 world ranking is 167 and doesn't have an adult world ranking.
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Won over ZHOU Jayden who is who is under 15
whose May 2019 U15 world ranking is 99 and doesn't have an adult world ranking.
·
Nicholas Tio Head-to-head vs Victor Liu (Most
three encounters. 3:0 in favor of Victor)
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Nicholas lost to Victor Liu at the 2019 US Pan
Am Trial in March. (Victor finished 2nd while Nicholas Tio finished 3rd)
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Nicholas lost to Victor at the 2018 US
Nationals.
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Nicholas lost to Victor at the 2017 US
Nationals.
·
2019 World Championships. Victor Liu upset two
higher ranked players, including a player of 133 in the world, in the
preliminary group and made the main draw. Nicholas won zero match in his group
and was eliminated.
·
Victor may have been treated unfairly at the
2018 Pan American Championships. Both Nicholas and Victor were there. However,
Victor only got to play one singles and one doubles matches while all other
players played more matches. (Victor was benched throughout the whole Teams
event.)
·
Victor vs Nicholas stats. Nicholas had played
174 international matches while Victor 377. Nicholas' winning rating was 58% vs
Victor's 66%.
Victor Liu and Nicholas
Tio Comparison at the World Championships
Both Victor (2016 and 2019) and Nicholas (2017, 2018, and
2019) represented US for the World Championships.
Here is the summary for their win/loss record in Singles:
Victor- 2016 4:1
- 2019 2:1
Nicholas- 2017 1:1
- 2018
As one of the four US male players, Nick did not get to play throughout the
tournament.
- 2019
0:2
The US National Coach Stefan Feth was the Men's Team Coach
for all above WTTC. The 2016 and 2018 WTTC were Teams Competition only. Victor
played five matches while Nicholas played zero. What does that tell you?
So, who should represent USA for the 2019 Pan Am Games? Do
not forget that Victor also defeated Nicholas at the 2019 Pan Am Trial in March
2019! It's unfortunate that USATT used, uses, and likely will use excessive and
illogical discretion to selection Team USA. It's totally against the spirit of
fair play.
Victor Liu should go
to the 2019 Pan Am Games, not Nicholas.
