Situated on the mouth of the Rhine Delta, Rotterdam will be the home for the World Championships in 2011, a fact that was endorsed on Saturday 13th March 2010 with the signing of a detailed contract in the Dutch city.

Present at the ceremony was Adham Sharara, ITTF President, plus all members of the ITTF Executive Committee: Yang Shu’an, Neil Harwood, Petra Sörling, Khalil Al-Mohannadi, Chérif Hajem, Koji Kimura, Melecio Rivera and Thomas Weikert.

Erica Terpstra (President Netherlands Olympic Committee), Edgar Verkooijen (President Netherlands Table Tennis Association) and Jaap Noordenbos (President Foundation Organizing Committee) attended on behalf of the local organising committee.

Watershed

In 1999 the city of Eindhoven in the south of the country was the home for the event which marked a watershed in the history of the World Championships.

In 1998, the city of Eindhoven had hosted a successful European Championships with Vladimir Samsonov and Ni Xia Lian being crowned the respective Men’s and Women’s Singles champions. Plans were in place for the city of Belgrade to host the World Championships in 1999 but civil war, in what was then known as Yugoslavia, thwarted plans.

Immediately, the Netherlands Table Tennis Association with Ton van Happen at the helm of the Organising Committee, as no doubt he will be in 2011, came to the rescue.

However, there was a difference to previous World Championships; only the five individual events were held – Men’s Singles, Women’s Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, Mixed Doubles – there were no team events, they were held one year later in Kuala Lumpur. In 2011 it will be the same scenario.

Looking Ahead

Preparations for May 2011 are now in progress but everyone concerned with sport is looking much further ahead.

Erica Terpsta, the Chair of the Netherlands National Olympic Committee, has a very definite goal in mind; no city has yet been proposed but her aim is to bring the Olympic Games to the Netherlands in 2028.

The reason for the date: it will mark 100 years since the Olympic Games was last held in the Netherlands; in 1928 the quadrennial multi-sport gathering was staged in Amsterdam.”