Nigeria’s Wahid Oshodi has been named as the chair of the ITTF World Ranking Working Group (WRWG) with the aim of innovating the ranking style of the sport.
The WRWG is made of nine members representing with two representatives from the Athletes’ Commission (The Czechs Dana Cechova and seven-time Olympian Belgian Jean-Michel Saive); the ITTF Technical Commissioner ( Australian Graeme Ireland), WTT Managing Director Matthew Pound;Chinese Li Xiaoxia, Brazilian Lincoln Yasuda and German Richard Prause; the ITTF World Ranking Manager (Javier Angulo) while Oshodi as Deputy President of ITTF Africa and ITTF Executive Vice President , chairs the group.
However, the latest proposition formulated by the WRWG has been approved by ITTF Executive Committee and effectively took effects on 3rd May with total removal of ‘initial points’ and the extension of the validity of all points gained during 2021 senior events as well as the restriction of the number of youth events counting for the senior ranking.
“Matters relating to player rankings are very important in our sport and I feel quite confident that the WRWG will have a great impact in improving and resolving historic issues surrounding the Rankings,” Oshodi said.“The general feeling among players, fans and officials was that the Rankings were not truly representative of the current standard of the players.
“Some players making rapid progress over the last year did not see their performances being accurately reflected in the Rankings. Therefore, it was time to remove these “initial points”. I believe a few other International Federations have taken similar steps as ours.”
“We are confident that the performances of players in tournaments will have an immediate impact on their ranking thus allowing them to climb up the rankings, consequently giving them the opportunity to take part in the top tier events.
“With these changes, performances in the many upcoming events will have the importance they deserve in the rankings and will generate some interesting movements in the following weeks and months,” he noted.