Grand Slam Champion ZHANG Jike (CHN) has made his return to the international table tennis scene at the Seamaster 2018 ITTF World Tour, Hang Seng Hong Kong Open that gets officially underway today, 24 May 2018 till 27 May 2018 at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Hong Kong.

Listed at number 87 of the most popular global athletes, ZHANG who saw his world ranking had fell to number 168 due to inactivity over the past year, was last seen at the German Open in November 2017 and had taken time off since for recovery of his injuries.

Having to fight his way through the qualification rounds yesterday to secure his place in the main draw of the Hang Seng Hong Kong Open, ZHANG shared on his current form “I feel good while training, but practice and competition is different, as the rhythm and pressure is different. Regardless of how much experience a player has, after a year of not playing a major event I still feel like a stranger to what should be a familiar situation. I'll continue playing a series of World Tour events to slowly find my form again and play each game one at a time without any expectations.”

Information from ITTF

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