‘Middle school student table tennis prodigy’ Kwon Hyuk (15, Daejeon Dongsan Middle School) took first place in the World Table Tennis (WTT) under 15 (U-15) men’s singles world ranking.

Kwon Hyuk won the WTT Youth Contender Doha 2023 U-15 men’s singles final held in Doha, Qatar on the 27th and 30th of last month by defeating his junior Lee Seung-soo (Daejeon Dongmuncho) 3-1. In the U-17 men’s singles final, he defeated his senior Lee Ho-yoon (Daejeon Dongsan High School) 3-0 to win the championship, and in the U-15 mixed doubles match with Yu Ye-rin (Seoul Munseong Middle School), daughter of ‘Legend’ coach Yoo Nam-gyu, he won three gold medals. rose to Then, at the ‘WTT Youth Star Contender Tunisia’ held on the 1st to 5th, he swept the U-15 singles and mixed doubles championships, and won a bronze medal in the U-19 singles and a silver medal in the doubles. He confidently climbed to the podium with his skills that are not far behind even against ‘brothers’ who are 4 years older than him.

Kwon Hyuk, who first picked up a table tennis racket at the age of six, has been a player who has been expected in the table tennis world as a ‘table tennis prodigy’ since he was in the first grade of elementary school and has not missed first place in every competition. His father is Daejeon Dongsan High School coach Kwon Oh-shin, who has nurtured national table tennis players such as Lim Jong-hoon, Ahn Jae-hyun, and Cho Seung-min. Daejeon Dongsan Elementary, Middle, and High School aces, including Kwon Hyuk, have been participating in WTT age-specific contender competitions one after another thanks to the dream tree support program that President Yoo Seung-min of the Korea Table Tennis Association has been working hard on since last year and the ‘Dream Dream Project’ operated by Daejeon Sports Council Lee Seung-chan at his own expense. are competing From the age of 13 to 17, Japanese players learn skills, stamina, performance, and 메이저사이트

Kwon Hyuk, who was ranked 12th in the world until October of last year, ranked first in the world in the WTT rankings announced on the 21st. After winning the first singles championship at the Podgorica Contender in Montenegro in October of last year, he won the Lignano Contender Championship in Italy for two consecutive years and was on the rise. Lee Seung-soo (1070 points), a smart junior, also took 5th place.

Hyuk Kwon was delighted with his first world No. 1 ranking. This is the first time that a Korean player has risen to the top of the world since the introduction of the WTT age ranking system. The 15-year-old top ranker, united by his unstoppable desire to compete, laughed, saying, “There was a time when the modifier ‘table tennis prodigy’ was a burden, but I never wanted to hear the story that ‘table tennis prodigy can’t play’ when I lost, so I focused more.” “It’s been 10 years since I started playing table tennis, and I became a player before I knew it because I enjoyed playing it, and table tennis is still the best ‘toy’.” Kwon Hyuk’s challenge on the world stage, an ace with the last name to become, is just beginning. He said, “I want to continue to be number one in the world by age group, and my goal is to rank first in all domestic competitions and enter the top 150 in the senior world rankings within this year.”