(by Steve Hopkins)
The Qualifiers have finished sending eight more players into the opening round of the United States Smash, the WTT Smash Series tour event being held at the Ontario Convention Center in Los Angeles.
Sweden’s Elisa Ranefur defeated Lim Jonghoon to claim the first spot on Saturday evening. Chan Baldwin, the dangerous (but inconsistent) 21 year old from Hong Kong topped China Huang Youzheng 3-0 to claim the second spot. Csaba Andras, a 23 year old player from Hungary, jumped out to a 2-0 lead over Feng Yi-Hsin and then held on for a 3-2 win. Germany’s Andre Bertelsmeier defeated Andrej Gacina 3-0, Iulian Chirita outlasted Deni Kozul 3-2, Vladislav Ursu dominated Martin Allegro 3-0, Kao Cheng-Jui defeated Xue Fei 3-2, and Horacio Cifuientes defeated Marcos Freitas.
Those qualifiers are now slotted into the knock-out Round of 64. This main draw is going to be one of the toughest of the year with nearly every player from the Top 50 in action – with many matches scheduled for today and the remainder tomorrow. Wang Chuqin is scheduled to face Zhou Qihao today at 6:35 local time. And Americans will see action both today and tomorrow: Daniel Tran will face Darko Jorgic at 1:10 today, Nandan Naresh will face Chen Yuanyu at 1:45 today, Kanak Jha will play Monday at 6:35, and Jishan Liang will face Tomokazu Harimoto at 7:45 tomorrow.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we’ll have more updates soon.
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