Third Edition of the STTOL in the Olympic Capital: Innovations at the Swiss Table Tennis Open Lausanne

Two successful tournaments have obviously persuaded the Organising Committee of the Swiss Table Tennis Open Lausanne to embark on a third edition which will include some new features :
• Dates of the tournament have been moved from the fall (November) to winter (8, 9, and 10 February 2013 for reasons of international calendar and logistics ;
• To meet the demands of various national federations who complained that a majority of their players played only two matches, the men will compete in qualifying rounds in 2013 with 4 players, as it was the case for the women ;
• This multiplication results in matches being played over three days, starting Friday evening at 18h.
• The audience will have the chance to see the top players in the tournament already on Saturday, since all the women will compete in the groups while the seeded men will start Saturday afternoon in the 1/8 finals. In 2011, you had to wait until Sunday morning to the see the top male players enter the arena.

These are some of the novelties. They allow us to better achieve our objectives of presenting a friendly tournament for players, interesting for the national federations and their young hopes and spectacular for the public. The CHF 30'000 prize money and the fact that the STTOL is a fixture in the ITTF calendar and account for world ranking points make it a great event.

Finally, thank you to our supporters, our sponsors, particularly Swiss Table Tennis, The Vaud Valais Fribourg Association, the City of Lausanne, the Canton of Vaud and the « Fonds du sport vaudois » who give us this opportunity to discover a sport that deserves to be better known. And played by all !

Welcome to Lausanne, welcome to the Olympic capital and long live table tennis !

Nicolas Imhof