(by Steve Hopkins)
The second event in the Euro Summer Series, The WTT Champions European Summer Series 2022, is underway in Hungary. The Finals of the first event finished on Saturday night, and players were back at it Monday morning. Both of last week’s finalists had trouble restarting – with action on the first day including a Truls Moregard loss to Marcos Freitas and a Wang Chuqin loss to Kristian Karlsson. The biggest upset was reserved for the second day, as World No.2 Ma Long fell in the Round of 16.
Patrick Franziska won the first game, but Ma Long fought back in the second game to tie the score 1-1. Franziska then jumped out again, easily winning the third game to take the 2-1 lead. The momentum shifted again in the sixth game as Ma Long dominated 11-4. The two then battled to 10-10 in the final game, and Patrick Franziska pulled out the final two points for the biggest upset of the tournament. Franziska will face Darko Jorgic on Thursday in the Quarterfinals.
Hugo Calderano had a tough day as well – losing the first two games to Lim Jonghoon 12-10, 12-10, and then falling apart (at 11-3). Lim Jonghoon will move on to face Tomokazu Harimoto. For Harimoto, he has had a great start to this event with two solid wins – a 3-1 win over Wong Chun Ting and a 3-0 win over Dang Qiu. Lin Gaoyuan quickly dispensed with Timo Boll 3-0. He will face Yukiya Uda who benefitted from being in the bracket where Truls Moregard was upset and fell out early. The final matchup is Chuang Chih-Yuan and Liang Jingkun. Jingkun is the highest remaining seed.
The Women’s Singles event continues to run mostly as expected. Of the Final 8, only one upset – with Japan’s Miyuu Kihara topped Germany’s Ying Han 3-1. Kihara will face Wang Yidi tomorrow. The other Quarterfinal matches are Doo Hoi Kem versus Sun Yingsha, Wang Manyu versus Mima Ito, and Chen Meng versus Hina Hayata.
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