(by Steve Hopkins, photo ITTFWorld)
Seedings matter. This lesson was all-to-clear for Kanak Jha who continues to rise in the rankings, but has not yet reached the levels he had two years ago. Jha entered the event as World No. 72, and after logging two solid wins (over Ramon Vila and Rogelio Castro), he fell to World No. 6 Hugo Calderano in the Quarterfinals. If Jha was still in the Top 40 in the World, he likely would have been in the bottom half of the draw (with an easier path to the Semifinals or further). As it is, Jha’s 1-4 loss to Calderano was a solid performance, and worth 90 ranking points (which should have him somewhere around World No. 60 in the next Rankings listing). The Semifinal matchups include three Brazillians with Leonardo Iizuka against Ishiy Vitor and Calderano taking on Argentina’s Horacio Cifuentes.
On the Women’s side, Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz will face Giulia Takahashi and USA’s Amy Wang will face Bruna Takahashi. These matches will all be played on Thursday.
The Team Events get underway tomorrow, so lots of quality table tennis on tap all weekend long. We’ll have more updates soon.
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