(by Steve Hopkins)
After an opening round that saw three of the World’s Top 10 ranked men fall to upsets, the Singapore Smash moved on to the Round of 32 – with half of the round played today and the other half scheduled for Monday.
The bottom half of the draw played on Sunday, with the top two seeds in that half both crusing – Ma Long topped Quadri Aruna 3-1 and Liang Jingkun topped Roberg Gardos 3-1. Jingkun will face Kiril Gerassimenko in the Round of 16 while Ma Long will face off against Wang Chuqin.
Benedikt Duda knocked out Truls Moregard 3-2, Germany’s fourth best player topping Sweden’s best. Duda will face Kristian Karlsson, another past Swedish champion, in the Round of 16. The other matchup in this half of the draw is Lin Yun-Ju (who has dominated both of his matches thus far 3-0) and Darko Jorgic, who topped China’s Lin Shidong 3-2.
With Ma Long, Wang Chuqin, Lin Yun-Ju, and Liang Jingkun all still in the mix, the bottom half of the draw is likely to produce exciting matches. That said, after today, that half of the draw has also seen some big upsets – with World Championships Finalist Truls Moregard and World No. 3 Hugo Calderano both out already.
Tomorrow’s action will include USA’s Kanak Jha (fresh off of his upset of World No.4 Harimoto) facing Anton Kallberg. Other players in action tomorrow include Timo Boll, Lim Jonghoon, Dang Qiu, Xu Xin, Patrick Franziska, Chuang Chih-Yuan, and Fan Zhendong.
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