(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
By Sunday afternoon, all that was left was the Final. With an upset taking out Fan Zhendong (he fell to Alexis Lebrun), and Harimoto’s loss to Wang Chuqin, the last two players standing were World No. 2 Chuqin and World No. 4 Ma Long.
After such a long and decorated career, it has become common to see Ma Long drop in the rankings to 3, or 4, or 5 and then win a few tournaments in a row and be back up at No. 2. And, in fact, with winning records in major events against most of the Chinese team – it has always been hard to count Ma Long “The Dragon” out.
Wang Chuqin, however, has a strong record against Ma Long. Some of that may be due to 22 year old Chuqin’s rise to prominence coming later in Ma Long’s career, but the numbers in major events have definitely slanted towards Chuqin. Before Sunday, the two players have faced each other eight times in major events and Wang Chuqin had won 5 of those 8 matches. And at this time Chuqin is the higher seed in the tournament (with the No. 2 World Ranking) – and the last three times these two have faced each other in WTT series events, Chuqin has won (WTT Cup Finals, WTT Champions Quarters, and WTT Euro Summer Series Semis).
After trading points through the middle of the first game of the Final, Ma Long jumped ahead 9-7. A sharp backhand exchange then put Ma Long up 10-7. Just one point away from the fast start that Ma Long needed – except a brilliant cross-court backhand by Chuqin brought him to 8, then a well placed backhand from the forehand side cross-court brought him to 9, and then a strong rally ended with a forehand winner by Chuqin to tie the score. The next tournament was a long rally with both players hammering forehands with Ma Long missing the final swing, and the last point included a great recovery from a net ball and a sharp block and two brilliant forehands. Five in a row to Chuqin to close out the first game.
It took Ma Long another game to fully recover from that loss. Chuqin won Game 2 easily 11-1. And at that point, the match was likely decided. The final two games were close through the middle – but Chuqin pulled away toward the end of both. A 4-0 win for Chuqin.
Macao finishes with some great stories. One headline of the event would be Alexis Lebrun and his run through both World No. 6 Truls Moregard and World No. 1 Fan Zhendong. But the last headline of the event is Wang Chuqin taking out Harimoto and Ma Long in consecutive days – both with a dominant score of 4-0.
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