(By Steve Hopkins)
The top four seeds in the WTT Contender Tunis were ranked between No. 6 and No. 15. Hugo Calderano lead the way, Lin Yun-Ju was seeded second, Lim Jonghoon was seeded third, and Lin Shidong was fourth. The first round began on Thursday, and two of those top four fell on the first day – with Lim Jonghoon losing 3-2 to Harmeet Desai, and Lin Shidong falling to An Jaehyun 3-1. Friday’s matches contained two more upsets with top seeded Hugo Calderano falling in 3 straight to Mattias Falck, and Lin Yun-Ju losing to a 26 year old relatively unknown Chinese player, Sun Wen (World No. 106).
Anton Kallberg and Patrick Franziska did both advance to the Quarterfinals – of interest, because these are the only two players seeded in the top 8 who actually made it through the Final 8. All of the others reached via upset. Falck topped Calderano on Friday to reach Saturday’s Quarterfinals. Tiago Apolonia had two upsets (over Takuya Jin and Simon Gauzy) to reach the Quarterfinals. Liang Yanning benefitted from the Jonghoon upset – as Yanning was able to defeat Desai easily 3-0 (instead of being the underdog against Korea’s top ranked player). An Jaehyun upset Lin Shidong but then fell to Mizuki Oikawa (in another upset) – so Oikawa has reached the Quarterfinals. And it was all upsets in the bottom section of the bracket as Can Akkuzu of France managed to top two Chinese players in a row (Xiang Peng and then Liu Dingshuo) on his way to the Quarterfinals. Akkuzu will have a chance to make it three in a row because he will next face Sun Wen (who upset Lin Yun-Ju).
In Women’s Singles, Japan had four of the top six seeds, and they have four players through to the Final 8. Japan’s Miyuu Kihara is the top seed, and she will face teammate Miyu Nagasaki on Saturday. Miwa Harimoto has cruised through without yet dropping a game – she will face Korea’s Yang Ha Eun. China’s Yang Yiyun will face Korea’s Shin Yubin. And the final pairing is Bruna Takahashi against Miu Hirano. Takahashi narrowly defeated USA’s Amy Wang in the first round on Thursday (3-2) and then upset Chen Szu-Yu of Taiwan. Miu Hirano is another top seed to cruise winning both of her matches 3-0 thus far.
Action continues on Saturday – with the Finals scheduled for Sunday.
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