(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
Kanak Jha is quietly having a great tournament in Macedonia this week, as the WTT Contender series event in Skopje has reached the Semifinals. While four of the top five seeds have fallen, Jha has logged wins over Deni Kozul, Marcos Freitas, and Simon Gauzy. The most recent of those solid wins was over Simon Gauzy this morning, where Jha dominated the first two games, lost narrowly 12-10 in the third, and then closed out the match 11-7 for a 3-1 win. Jha will face Hiroto Shinozuka later today.
Shinozuka defeated top-seed Anders Lind in their Quarters match this morning, so the 22 year old Japanese player is also on a roll this week. The other Semifinal is Anton Kallberg and Darko Jorgic. As a quirk of the draw, Kallberg has won three matches but all three against players from the Korea Republic. He defeated Oh Junsung in the opening round, then Lim Jonghoon in the Quarters, and beat Park Gyuhyeon in the Semifinals earlier today. Kallberg will face the event’s highest remaining seed, Darko Jorgic late today.
Lily Zhang played this week, but the American fell to a surging Hana Goda of Egypt. Goda has had strong results in recent tournaments, but lost to Satsuki Oda in the Quarters. The overall story of the Women’s draw will be Japanese dominance. One semi will be Odo versus Hitomi Sato and the other will be Sakura Yokoi and Honoka Hashimoto. Four Japanese women, including the top two event seeds, will face off tonight and tomorrow.
The finals are set for Sunday.
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