(By Steve Hopkins, photo ITTF)
Today was the final day of action at the ITTF World Youth Championships in Cluj Napoca, Romania. China claims wins in six of the 14 events, with Japan winning three, Taipei and Germany winning a pair, and Thailand winning the remaining event.
The U19 Boys Team event went to Japan. Taipei was the second seed, and they defeated China in the Quarterfinals 3-1 before falling 2-3 to India. For its part, Japan had little trouble with Korea in their Semifinal match (winning 3-1) and then rolled past India 3-0.
U19 Boys featured Japan/China match-ups in both Semifinals. Japan won both of those matches, and then Ryuusei Kawakami won the Final over Kazuki Yoshiyama 4-2. The top players in these events are not always the best players at that age (sometimes 17 or 18 year olds make the transition to the professional tour ranks and stop competing in youth events). That said, these are great results for Japan with Kawakami winning at just 16 years old.
Top seed Anna Hursey of Wales reached the Semifinals, but otherwise the U19 Girls Singles event was dominated by China. Hursey lost to eventual winner, Qin Yuxuan. And runner-up Zong Geman defeated Japan’s Yuna Ojio in the other Semifinal. Qin won 4-2 in the Final.
Interestingly, the U19 Doubles and Teams results were not as expected. U19 Boys’ Doubles went to Taipei’s team of Kuo and Hsu who defeated the Japanese team of Kawakami and Yoshiyama (who had finished first and second in Singles). The same is true in U19 Girls Doubles where the first and second place finishers in Singles (Zong/Qin) lost to Wales’ Anna Hursey and Germany’s Mia Griesel. Mixed Doubles went to a Chinese pair of Li/Qin who topped Iulian Chirita of Romania who had teamed with Anna Hursey. The U19 Teams events did follow the pattern established in Singles with Japan winning U19 Boys and China winning U19 Girls.
Taipei won the U15 Boys Teams with a 3-2 win over Italy. Both Finalists were surprises as Taipei needed to upset Iran and then upset top-seeded Korea to reach the Final, and Italy needed to upset Romania, then upset Japan, and then upset China. Ultimately, the the battle of Cinderellas, it was Taipei winning 3-2.
It was an all-China Final in the U15 Boys Singles event with Yu Haiyang defeating Zhou Guanhong 4-2. German Koharu Itagaki won Girls U15 Singles with a 4-2 win over China’s Zhu Qihui. China won both Boys and Girls U15 Doubles with Zhou/Yu winning Boys and Zhu/Liu winning Girls. Thailand’s only event win came in Mixed Doubles, where Thitaphat Preechayan and Kulapassr Vijitviriyagul defeated the top seeded Chinese squad in the Semifinals before defeating another Chinese squad (Yu/Zhu) 3-2 in the Final. In U15 Girls Teams, Japan topped second seeded China in the Semifinals before taking out top-seeded Korea Republic 3-1 in the Final.
Results for Americans varied, with Nandan Naresh logging the only American win in any of the U19 events (he was 1 of 2, falling in a 4-3 loss to Benyamin Faraji in the Round of 16 of U19 Boys Singles). Abigail Yu won her opening match in U15 Girls Singles before falling to Germany’s Josephina Neumann in the Round of 16. Kef Noorani and Irene Yeoh had a solid run in the U15 Mixed Doubles event, losing 1-3 to a Thai pair in the Quarterfinals.
TeamUSA’s U15 Teams both reached the Quarterfinals. TeamUSA’s U15 Boys Team defeated Germany 3-1 before falling to Korea. TeamUSA U15 Girls won their opening match over host Romania 3-1 and then fell to Team China in the Quarterfinals.
The world will turn its attention back to the pros in 10 days as the next major event is the WTT Finals Hong Kong which starts on December 10.
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