Vladimir Sidorenko strikes gold in St. Petersburg

Starting off this week’s Player Watch we centre our focus on Vladimir Sidorenko, who continues to paint a positive picture for the future of Russian table tennis.

The 18-year-old was the standout player at the Russia Top 16 tournament over the weekend, seeing off Kirill Skachkov at the final hurdle to lift the men’s singles trophy in St. Petersburg. Congratulations Vladimir!

Polish club UKS Dojlidy Bialystok and Aliaksandr Khanin join forces

Aliaksandr Khanin is the latest player to make waves on the club transfer scene, confirming his move to Poland for the upcoming season.

The Belarusian announced the news via his official social channels and will undoubtedly strengthen UKS Dojlidy Bialystok’s chances of a successful campaign ahead:

Working hard

There’s little time to rest for professional sports athletes, especially with the impending club season around the corner.

Simon Gauzy and new TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen arrival Kanak Jha have been working on their game, although, as Simon says, his new teammate might need to keep an eye on his drop shot technique:

Liam Pitchford and Jonathan Groth will be playing alongside one another for Russian club TTSC UMMC and both are showing their competitive edge in training:

Elizabeta Samara recently penned a new deal with KTS Enea Siarka Tarnobrzeg in Poland and continues to push herself to the limit:

Following her move to French side TT Saint-Quentin, Sarah De Nutte is showing promising signs in the defensive side of her game:

A special mention also goes to Will Bayley after the British Paralympic star made his return to training after a year-long absence due to injury:

Out and about

Who doesn’t enjoy a behind the scenes peak into the lives of the pro players? More often than not our main avenue of seeing the stars comes in the playing hall, but on occasion they can be spotted out and about too.

Here’s a selection of some of our favourite outdoor snapshots posted by the players on social media during the week:

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Special celebrations

Regular readers will know that we enjoy a good reason to celebrate on Player Watch, so if you, like us, are looking to brighten up your day then we have a celebratory posts to share courtesy of the stars.

First, we have a few birthday celebrations to highlight with Tatiana Kukulkova, Audrey Zarif and Omar Assar all entering a new year in their respective lives:

There were further celebrations aside from the birthday scene with a few players uploading celebratory wedding anniversary posts in dedication of their special day: