(by Steve Hopkins)
We don’t always do “preview” articles on WTT Champions events, but this particular event isn’t the norm. Nineteen of the World Top 25 will be in action this week in Chongqing as well as American Kanak Jha, the pair of rising young Frenchmen Poret and Coton. Shidong is not present, but a strong Chinese contingent will be present including Chuqin, Peng, Jingkun, Yuanyu, Qihao, Ruibo, and wild card entry 20 year old Huang Youzheng. It should be an exciting week with opening matches starting on Tuesday.
USA’s Kanak Jha starts on Tuesday against Sora Matsushima. Matsushima is a tough match-up for Jha, winning their only two previous matches 3-0 and 4-0. However, in a draw filled with top players, a match-up against World No. 8 is about as good as World No. 28 could hope for – and this would be the only path for a lower seed to reach the Quarters without having to face a player seeded higher than Matsushima.
If the top seeds advance as expected, Wang Chuqin and Sora Matsushima would face off in one Quarterfinals – and Chuqin would have the tougher path of the two with Alexis Lebrun and Franziska in his portion of the draw. Calderano and Felix Lebrun could face each other though Yuanyu and Togami may have other ideas. Lin Yun-Ju and Tomokazu could each reach the Quarters in their part of the draw, though Qihao is also in that section. And Moregard is the top seed in the bottom section of the draw, but he has a loaded 8th with Peng, Jingkun, Qiu, and Ruibo all ready to fight their way out to the Semifinals as well.
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