(by Steve Hopkins)
The top players in the world converged on Hong Kong this week with four emerging to play on the final day of the WTT Finals. By that point, Wang Chuqin, Lin Shidong, Tomokazu Harimoto, and Truls Moregard had emerged to reach the Semifinals and it looked as though the surprises of the event had past. We could not have been more wrong.
Tomokazu Harimoto and Lin Shidong had an epic battle in the earlier of the Sunday Semifinals. Harimoto won the first two games (a tight 12-10 win and then an 11-4 dominant performance). Shidong then turned the tables, grinding out a pair of 12-10 wins to even the score. Harimoto and Shidong then traded wins with Harimoto coming out on top.
The other half of the draw was less exciting, but just as surprising. Wang Chuqin had been nursing a back injury, and while he showed up ready to play, he withdrew – a walkover win for Truls Moregard. Chuqin’s doubles partner Sun Yingsha also had a withdrawal a day earlier in Women’s Singles – and the pair fought through their respective injuries to narrowly lose the Mixed Doubles final. Perhaps too many matches for the talented pair of World No. 1 players.
This set up a Men’s Singles Final between a Swede and Japanese player – with the top seeded Chinese watching from the sidelines. Like the early Harimoto/Shidong match, the two Finalists traded games to 2-2. Harimoto won the first and third games, and Moregard answered both times. In game five, both players traded points until a 14-12 Harimoto win. And that basically dediced the match – Harimoto rolled through the final game winning easily 11-2 and logging the 4-2 win.
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