The appearance of five of New Zealand's top 10 male players should add some serious spice to the Otago Open this weekend.
The annual tournament, which will be held at the Edgar Centre tomorrow and Sunday, has attracted more than 100 competitors to Dunedin, with the open men's draw looking particularly strong.
Three of the country's top five players - Jong Eub Han, Yi-Sien Lin and Ivo Mikulec, all from Canterbury - will be among the favourites to share the spoils when the competition gets under way tomorrow afternoon.
They should face stiff competition from Auckland's Victor Ma, who entered the top 10 on the back of consecutive wins at the Waitemata and Counties Opens recently, and Manawatu's Matthew Ball.
Leading Australian player Sharad Pandit will travel to Dunedin for the tournament to compete in the open and veterans sections and is also a title contender.
The open men's draw is the largest of the tournament, with 30 players registered.
The open women's section will also feature some of the country's top players, including Auckland's Sarah Sandley, Manawatu's Catherine Zhou and Otago's Jill Liu.
An under-11 section has been included for the first time and will join under-13, under-15 and under-18 age-group sections, which will take place on Sunday.
Para and deaf championships have also been included for the first time.
Otago Table Tennis Association director of coaching and development Ben Duffy said the changes were made in an effort to attract more people to the sport at a younger age.
The total of 107 entries for this year's event was a good result, Duffy said.
"We've had the South Island Championships already this year [in May], which has prevented a number of people from coming back twice.
"Four years ago, we had 50 [competitors]. For the past four years, it's been around the 100 mark.''
The tournament starts with the senior men's and women's events at 3.30pm tomorrow.
