(by Steve Hopkins)
Five of the ITTF’s Top 10 reached the Quarterfinals as the third elimination round concluded today at this year’s Singapore Smash. However, since all ten of those players competed, that means there have already been five big upsets.
Tomorrow’s quarterfinal pairings are Fan Zhendong v. Truls Moregard, Wang Chuqin v. Lin Gaoyuan, Hugo Calderano v. Quadri Aruna, and Dang Qiu v. Ma Long.
In third round (16s) action, Fan dominated Korea’s Lim Jonghoon 3-0. World No. 1 Fan Zhendong never let Lim into the match, as all three combined scores for Korea’s top ranked player only added up to 10 (11-3, 11-2, 11-5). Moregard won a strange match with Togami where the two traded lopsided games with the difference being that Moregard won the only close game (3-11, 11-6, 11-2, 6-11, 11-9).
Wang Chuqin ended the run of Singapore’s 16 year old qualifier Quek Izaac. Izaac took out Sharath Kamal Achanta 3-0 in the first round and then topped Mattias Falck 3-2. No player from host country Singapore has ever reached the final 16 in this event – so just facing off against Wang Chuqin in the Round of 16 was a step forward. That said, Chuqin dominated every aspect of the game, winning 3-0 easily. The other young player on a surprise run was France’s 16 year old penholder, Felix Lebrun. Lebrun topped Simon Gauzy in the first round 3-1 and then blanked Lin Yun-Ju 3-0 to reach the Round of 16 – but Germany’s Dang Qiu rode a fast 2-0 start and held on for the 3-2 win. Qiu moves on to face Ma Long – Ma Long has yet to lose a game in this tournament winning all three of his matches 3-0.
Lin Gaoyuan and Liang Jingkun always seem to play close matches. Their Round of 16 matchup was no exception as Gaoyuan won the first two games 11-8 and 11-8 before dropping the next two (at -6 and -9). The two traded points to 7-7 in the final game before a streak by Gaoyuan closed out the match (11-8). Gaoyuan will now face another Chinese teammate, Wang Chuqin.
The final pairing is Hugo Calderano and Quadri Aruna – and while both are in the World’s Top 15 and both are the best player on their continent, reaching this far is still a surprise. For Hugo, he had a tough opening match with Korea’s Cho Seungmin, which he won 3-2. He then logged a solid 3-1 performance against Japan’s Yukiya Uda and followed that up by defeating recent Euro 16 winner Darko Jorgic 3-1. For Aruna, he won a tight 3-2 match over Ruwen Filus, then fought through another tight 3-2 win to defeat France’s Alexis Lebrun. He then played his best match of the year, taking out Harimoto 3-0. Calderano and Aruna will face off on Friday evening.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we’ll have more updates soon.
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