ITTF announces nominees for inaugural Star Awards

The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) has announced the nominees for the 2013 ITTF Star Awards to be held in Raffles Hotel in Dubai, UAE on 11 January 2014. 08 Jan 2014 By ITTF

Two of the awards recognise para-table tennis players

The inaugural ITTF Star Awards will feature seven awards, including three chosen by the fans, with the proceeds of the night going to ITTF's corporate social responsibility programme Dream Building that raises money for para table tennis, development and junior table tennis initiatives.

Two of the awards recognise para-table tennis players are the nominees are:

Para Male Table Tennis Star presented by Tinsue, as selected by the ITTF Para Table Tennis Division:

• Ma Lin (CHN) - Gold in class nine at the 2013 Asian Championships in singles and team 2013 Korean Open gold in teams class eight-nine and silver in the singles.

• Robert Davis (GRB) – World number one in class one. 2013 European Championships gold in singles and team and 2013

Slovenian Open and German Open gold in singles and bronze in team.

• Thomas Schmidberger (GER) - Unbeaten since the London 2012 Paralympics and has won about 60 matches in 2013. World number one in class three and number four in men’s wheelchair. 2013 European Championships, Czech Open, Italian Open and Slovenian Open gold in singles.

Para Female Table Tennis Star, as selected by the ITTF Para Table Tennis Division:

• Melissa Tapper (AUS) – World number two in class 10. 2013 Bayreuth Open gold in singles and bronze at the 2013 Lasko Open and Bratislava Open.

• Sandra Paovic (CRO) – 2013 European Championships class 6 gold, also gold in the class six-seven events at the 2013 Slovenian Open, Hungarian Open (in her first ever event), and the Italian Open.

• Anna-Carin Ahlquist (SWE) - Unbeaten since the London 2012 Paralympics. World number one in class three and two in women wheelchair. 2013 European Championships class three singles gold and 2013 Copa Tango Open, Slovenia Open, Germany Open and Italy Open singles and team gold.

The winners will be chosen by an expert ITTF panel and will be announced during the ITTF Star Awards on 11 January 2014.

Find out more about the International Table Tennis Federation.