(by Steve Hopkins)
Malmo, Sweden is host to the Europe Smash this week, and we enter the final day with three of the top four seeds still in action on the Men’s side. In the top half of the draw, World No. 4 Felix Lebrun emerged to reach the Semifinals. Lebrun won his opening match 3-1 over Ionescu before almost running the table – defeating Park Ganghyeon 3-0, topping Thibault Poret 3-0, and defeating Hugo Calderano 4-0 along the way. On Sunday, Lebrun will face Darko Jorgic who took advantage of a pair of upsets in his section of the draw. Jorgic defeated Ovtcharov (instead of Truls Moregard who fell to Ovtcharov in an upset in the first round), and Jorgic defeated Assar 4-2 (instead of Lin Yun-Ju who fell in an upset to Jonathan Groth in the second round). Jorgic has reached the Semifinals without facing a player seeded above him, and he has taken care of business thus far.
USA’s Kanak Jha had a nice win over Fang Bo, but then fell to Lin Shidong in the second round. Shidong then lost to Alexis Lebrun in the Round of 16 and Lebrun fell to Tomokazu Harimoto 4-0 in the Quarters. Harimoto has already had to face a pair of Japanese teammates, beating Yukiya Uda 3-0 and taking a tough 3-2 win over Shunsuke Togami. After beating Alexis Lebrun, Harimoto will face another Japanese player on Sunday – Sora Matsushima.
Matsushima has not had an easy tournament, but he has fought through for some tough wins. Matsushima won his opening match over Gnanasekaran 3-1 before winning three straight matches in the final game. Matsushima topped Feng Yi-Hsin 3-2, then Zhou Qihao 3-2, and finally Elias Ranefur 4-3. Matsushima now moves on to face Harimoto for the second week in a row – a match he lost a week ago to Harimoto.
Miwa Harmimoto has continued her dominant play. A week ago, she was the top seed – and she won the event. This week, she is second seed and she has reached the Semifinals with 3-1, 3-0, 4-0 wins. Harimoto will face Wang Yidi next in the Semis. The other half of the draw is World No. 1 Wang Manyu and World No. 3 Kuai Man.
Semifinals and Finals are set for Sunday.
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