(by Steve Hopkins)
This week’s WTT Contender Series event is in Taiyuan, China. Contender events are a mix of top players (in this case, all outside of the World Top 20) and rising players. As the event is in China, where many great players don’t have opportunity to play internationally, one would expect to see Chinese players pressing through to the Finals. This week, no Chinese player made the Final in either Men’s or Women’s Singles.
An Jaehyun, the event’s top seed breezed into the Final Four with 3-1, 3-1, and 3-0 wins and a 3-1 win over Chen Yuanyu put him firmly into the Finals without having been pressed. The other side of the draw had a Semifinal with 17 year old Japanese Champion Sora Matsushima and fast-rising Xiang Peng of China – who won in Korea just a week ago. Matsushima ended Xiang Peng’s run in the Semifinals with relative ease – a 3-0 win at 6, 9, and 3.
This set up a Final between top seeded An Jaehyun, and fourth seeded Sora Matsushima. The match was epic, with momentum shifting numerous times, with Matsushima winning the first, third, fifth, and seventh games. As you’ll see in the match video below, both players play round, attacking games that are exciting to watch. Today’s match clearly could have gone either way – but the prize goes to Japan’s current national champion, Sora Matsushima.
The top seeds each fell out early in Women’s Singles. Zhu Yuling took out top seeded Qian Tianyi in the Round of 16, and then road her streak all the way to the Final. In the bottom half of the draw, Japan’s Miyuu Kihara lost to Qin Yuxuan in the Quarters, but teammate Honoka Hashimoto outsted Yuxuan 3-0 in the Semifinals. This set up a Final between World No. 18 Honoka Hashimoto and World No. 37 Zhu Yuling. At 30 years old, Zhu Yuling is less consistent than she was a decade ago as one of China’s top players – but now a star of Macao’s team, Yuling can beat the world’s best on the right day. However, today belonged to Japan’s Hashimoto. Four quick games in the Final were the perfect ending to a perfect week. Honoka Hashimoto went 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 3-0, 4-0 for a total of 16 straight wins to claim this title.
Men’s Doubles went to Xu Yingbin and Xiang Peng, Women’s Doubles went to the Korean pair of Kim Nayeong and Ryu Hanna, and Mixed Doubles also went to Korea with Lim Jonghoon and Kim Nayeong taking the title.
The table tennis world next turns its focus to Macao for the Men’s and Women’s World Cups.
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