(by Steve Hopkins)
Thirty-two men and thirty-two women have descended on Frankfurt for the latest WTT Champions Series event. In Men’s Singles, eight of the World Top 10 are present including Fan Zhendong and Wang Chuqin (World No. 1 and No. 2). In fact, there are enough points up for grabs that a quality performance by Chuqin could leave him retaking World No. 1 (for the third time in recent months). The first round of action in Men’s Singles started on Sunday, with additional matches scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. Rounds will advance slowly, with most playing just one match per day – until the Finals are played next Sunday.
In early action, Fan Zhendong and Truls Moregard battled through three tight games – with Fan winning two – before Fan gained the advantage and closed out the match 3-1. Moregard was clearly on his game, changing the pace, hitting slow loops to set up attacks, and hitting deep winners to both corners that were deceptive. For Fan, he played like the top player in the world – careful to limit misses, and apparently with the expectation that rallies were to his benefit – willing to exchange strong counters and to let Moregard dictate direction and pace. In the end, Fan won two of the three tight games and then pulled away for the 3-1 win.
Lee Sang Su traded games with Timo Boll, but then pulled away for a relatively easy 3-1 win. Dimitrij Ovtcharov had a similar result with Marcos Freitas – the two traded games early, but then Ovtcharov won two easy games to close out the match 3-1. Alexis Lebrun and Liang Jingkun also ended with a 3-1 score (with Liang winning), but it was very tight through all four games. The other players who advanced on the Men’s side were Wang Chuqin and Lim Jonghoon (each advanced easily over outmatched, lower ranked players).
In Women’s Singles, Prithika Pavade upset Cheng I-Ching 3-0 to advance. Sabine Winter and Shin Yubin both advanced 3-0. Jia Nan Yuan, Bernadette Szocs, and Chen Meng each breezed into the next round as well.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we’ll have more updates soon.
Visit ButterflyOnline.com for the latest table tennis news and results
