(by Steve Hopkins)
Dang Qiu benefitted from some upsets in his half of the draw at this week’s WTT Star Contender series event in London. Qiu’s first match was a 3-1 win over Chan Baldwin of Hong Kong (after Chan upset Eduard Ionescu in the opening round). Qiu then easily topped Manav Thakkar (3-0) to advance to what could have been a Quarterfinal match against Dimirij Ovtcharov, but Kay Stumper upset Ovtcharov – so Qiu moved to the Semifinals after defeating Stumper 3-0. And in the Semifinals, Qiu again didn’t face one of the top seeds as Darko Jorgic was upset by Kristian Karlsson and Yukiya Uda was upset by Milosz Redsimski. It was Redzimski, the 19 year old Pole, that emerged from that section of the draw to face Qiu – and Qiu won a tight 3-2 battle to reach the Final.
The other half of the draw was much more “standard” with the top four seeds reaching the Quarters where top seeded Harimoto defeated Anders Lind and then Lin Yun-Ju topped Sora Matsushima. That left Harimoto and Yun-Ju in the Semi – a match that Harimoto won 3-1.
Dang Qiu and Tomokazu Harimoto basically fought to a draw through the first four games – with each game tied at the end and one player pulling out the final two points for the narrow win. Unfortunately for Harimoto, it was Qiu that won the first three of those tight games, leading 3-1 after four games (13-11, 12-10, 14-12, 9-11). Harimoto then logged an easy win (11-7) to tighten the score. But Qiu sealed the victory with yet another 2-point win, a 12-10 game to win the match 4-2 and claim the London title.
Another Harimoto reached the Women’s final, as Miwa Harimoto navigated through the event as the top seed, and defeated three Japanese teammates out of her five wins to claim the title. Harimoto topped Honoka Hashimoto 3-1 in one Semifinal. Hina Hayata won the other Semifinal 3-1 over Cheng I-Cheng. And despite Hayata winning the first two games, it was Harimoto taking four of the final five games to close out the win.
The tour continues its run through Europe with the WTT Champions Montpellier starting on Tuesday, and the WTT Champions Frankfurt starting on November 4.
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