(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
The headline yesterday was one big upset – the headline today is competitive matches across the board as five of the eight matches go down to the final game. Lind continued his “Cinderella” run with the World No. 50 topping Kao Cheng-Jui (No. 23) 3-2 to advance to the Quarterfinals. Lind will face World No. 7 Lin Shidong tomorrow after Shidong topped Anton Kallberg in another tight 3-2 match. The second fourth of the draw saw a pair of upsets as Xiang Peng (local “wild card” entry) defeat World No. 5 Felix Lebrun 3-1. Peng will face Truls Moregard. Moregard advanced after upsetting Tomokazu Harimoto 3-2. Two of Truls wins were long games, a 15-13 first game and a 13-11 final game.
In the bottom half of the draw, Hugo Calderano rallied to take the final two games in his 3-2 win over Darko Jorgic. Calderano will face Ma Long on Friday, after Ma Long’s 3-0 win over Lee Sang Su. Liang Jingkun won his match today 3-2 over Zhou Qihao. Jingkun will face Lin Gaoyuan in the final pairing tomorrow.
The Quarterfinal pairing for the women will be Sun Yingsha versus Mima Ito, Fan Siqi versus Cheng I-Ching, Suh Hyo Won versus Chen Xingtong, and He Zhuojia versus Wang Manyu.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap this weekend – we’ll have more updates soon.
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