(by Steve Hopkins)
Kanak Jha needed all seven games to advance 4-3 in his first round win over Guilherme Teodoro at the ITTF World Table Tennis Championships Finals in Doha, Qatar. Jha has moved in to the Round of 64 where he will face Eduard Ionescu on Monday. Jha was one of four US men to qualify to play in Doha, but he is the only one of the four still playing.
The rest of the TeamUSA men have not fared as well. Sid Naresh fell 1-4 to Francisco Sanchi of Argentina, Nandan Naresh fell 0-4 against World No. 2 Wang Chuqin, and Jishan Liang lost 0-4 to Lin Yun-Ju. Jishan Liang and Sid Naresh also lost on Sunday in their Men’s Doubles match, an 0-3 loss to Kwan/Yiu of Hong Kong. Both of the TeamUSA Mixed Doubles teams are out as well with Nandan Naresh and Sally Moyland falling 2-3 to Burgos and Vega of Chile, Jishan Liang and Amy Wang losing 0-3 to the strong Chinese pairing of Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha.
On the Women’s side, Jessica Reyes Lai won her match 4-0 over Arantxa Cossio of Mexico. Amy Wang topped recently-crowned Europe’s U21 Champion Anna Hursey 3-2. Sally Moyland defeated Nigeria’s Ajoke Ojomu 4-1. And to make it a clean sweep – Lily Zhang topped Mateja Jeger of Croatia 4-2.
There is lots of action on tap this week – and TeamUSA is still in the mix in both singles events.
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