(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
The top seed is out, and USA’s Kanak Jha now enters the Round of 16 in the position most expected would be filled by Hugo Calderano. The Calderano/Jha match started like many of their recent match-ups, an 11-4 win for Calderano put him in a dominant position, Jha fought back for a narrow 13-11 win in the second, and Calderano dominated the third to take the lead again (11-6). This time, however, it was Jha who fought from behind and who flawlessly closed out the remaining games – logging a pair of 11-9 wins to take the match 3-2. At worst, Jha has already secured 90 Ranking Points and $6,000 in prize money – and while I’m sure he’s planning to press further, 90 points is likely enough to move up two spots to No. 22.
Jha and Calderano were one of the interesting “couplings” in this tournament. These two were the Pan Am Finalists, and the winner (Jha) now moves on to face Lee Sang Su who was paired against another player from the Korea Republic (An Jaehyun). In fact, out of the 16 matchups, six of them were natural pairs. Yukiya Uda faces Harimoto in an all-Japan pairing on Thursday, Anton Kallberg and Truls Moregard play an all-Sweden pairing on Thursday, Dan Qiu defeated German teammate Benedikt Duda today, and Simon Gauzy defeated French teammate Lilian Bardet today and will face French teammate Felix Lebrun on Thursday.
The other Round of 16 matchups will be Jang Woojin and Lin Yun-Ju, Felix Lebrun versus Simon Gauzy, Sora Matsushima against Patrick Franziska, Dang Qiu and Oh Junsung, and Darko Jorgic versus Hiroto Shinozukua. Three matches in the first round have yet to be played, with Ovtcharov, Moregard, Kallberg, and Harimoto all set to play for the first time tomorrow.
The top seed in the Women’s event is out as well. Bernadette Szocs upset Chen Xingtong 3-0 in the 1pm match on Tuesday. And, interestingly, just an hour later teammate Elizabeta Samara upset Mima Ito. The two Romanians are now in the Round of 16, and if they were both to win their next match (Szocs faces Sabine Winter, and Samara faces Doo Hoi Kem) then they’d face each other in the Quarterfinals. USA’s Lily Zhang had a 2-1 lead over Chen Yi of China, but couldn’t hold on – falling 2-3. The second seed, Kuai Man, lost to Kim Nayeong of the Korea Republic on Wednesday.
Lots of action has yet to unfold. Visit ButterflyOnline.com for the latest table tennis news and results.
