(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
The Men’s Singles event was full of surprises at the WTT Star Contender Chennai. Tomislav Pucar upset Tomokazu Harimoto only to fall to 18 year old Korean Oh Junsung in the Quarters. And Jonathan Groth and Sora Matsushima were on a path to meet each other in the Quarters except for 16 year old Flavien Coton who eliminated both in turn.
Another Frenchman, 20 year old Thibault Poret snuck through his Quarter of the draw avoiding both of the top seeds who fell in upsets and then dominated his Quarterfinal match over Snehit Survajjala 3-1. And the last Semifinalist was India’s Manav Thakkar who defeated Lim Jonghoon in a tight 3-2 Quarterfinal matchup.
None of the four Semifinalists were expected to reach that point. The matchups were 12th seed against 31st seed (Junsung v. Coton) and No. 19 versus No. 20 (Poret v. Thakkar). Or to say that differently, the top eleven players in the tournament were all eliminated before the Semifinals.
In Sunday’s Semifinal matches, Oh Junsung and Thibault Poret were both dominant. Oh swept Coton 3-0 in the early match. Poret had tighter scores, but he cruised to a 3-1 win over Thakkar. This set up what turned out to be an epic Final between two young, up-and-coming players – Oh Junsung of Korea and Thibault Poret of France.
Poret and Oh were very evenly matched and their styles were similar with safer backhand and creating forehand power with great footwork and full-body swings. Both players chose topspin to topspin with most rallies extended giving the fans something great to watch. Poret won the first game 11-9 but Oh then logged two dominant games at 11-7 and 11-3 to take the lead. The two then fought through another 11-9 game with Poret evening the match score. And in the fifth game, Poret pulled away early and won easily. Just as the match had turned towards Poret, it was Oh that found a higher gear and pulled away in each of the final games. Oh Junsung wins 4-3: (-9, 7, 3, -9, -6, 4, 7). An amazing match from start to finish.
Not to be outdone, the Women’s Singles Final matched the powerful Miwa Harimoto against Japan’s best defender, Honoko Hashimoto, in what turned out to be one of the longest matches of the tournament. Harimoto played carefully, picking her opportunities to attack and mixing in soft pushes and touch shots, and Hashimoto chopped ball after ball back leading to games with expedite rules enforced. In the end, Hashimoto won the first and fifth games in a match that went to Harimoto 4-2. An Epic all-Japanese final in Chennai.
The Men’s Doubles event went to Korea’s Lim Jonghoon and An Jaehyun who won 3-1 over Japan’s Matsushima and (Tomokazu) Harimoto. Miwa Harimoto added a doubles title, teaming up with Miyuu Kihara to win Women’s Doubles. And Lim Jonghoon and Shin Yubin won Mixed Doubles.
The next stop for the WTT Tour is Incheon, Korea for a WTT Champions Series event that begins on Tuesday. Harimoto, Calderano, Felix Lebrun, Moregard, Franziska, Gaoyuan, Qiu, Jorgic, Woojin and Yun-Ju will all be competing.
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