Dunlop Backs New Look Ping Pong
Dunlop has announced that it is to sponsor the upcoming World Championship of Ping Pong – the latest sport to get the Barry Hearn makeover, following the conclusion of the PDC World Darts Championships at Alexandra Palace.
The global sports brand will become official equipment supplier of the event, which will take place on the weekend of the 5th and 6th January 2013 at the London venue.
The deal will see all tournament matches played on Dunlop’s EVO 8000 Master Edition table with all championship officials wearing Dunlop apparel.
Produced by Matchroom Sport and televised live throughout by Sky Sports, the World Championship of Ping Pong (WCPP) aims to further increase awareness and popularity of ping pong and drive the sport onto the international television stage.
The tournament’s new look format will see players initially compete in eight groups of eight players in a double elimination format where two wins means advancement to the last 32 while two defeats mark the end of the road.
Played over the Saturday afternoon, there will be 80 matches in total to see the field reduced from 64 down to 32 players.
From there the event is straight knock-out until the last two men are standing and Sunday night’s final will be over the best of five games.
Ping Pong looks like table tennis, except players cannot use their own bats and are instead randomly assigned one at the start of a match. The paddle area of the bats have a rough covering, as opposed to the pimpled rubber and foam on modern day table tennis bats, with the intention of reducing speed and spin and increasing rally length.
Players can also call on a ‘double-point’ orange ball once every match – with the chance of winning two points.
Hearn told BBC East Sport: ‘I’m going to make them all superstars. It’s rock ‘n’ roll. It’s going to be high fives, knocking balls into the crowd, interaction between the players and the crowd.’
‘I get one chance at this to impress the paying public. The purists have been crying out for this. Now they’ve got their chance.’
