The last two WTT events saw the emergence of Wen Ruibo, a talented 19-year-old who finished second and then first in consecutive WTT events. This week, Ruibo (now world number 24) was the top seed at the WTT Feeder Series event in Doha. Unfortunately, he did not perform well as a favorite: a 3-1 defeat against Nikita Artemenko. In defense, Artemenko is not a typical low-ranked player. He has been one of the best players in Russia for years and his ranking is artificially low because his opportunities to play internationally are limited. Yet Ruibo’s streak of deep runs is over – replaced this week by a run from the tricky Russian that only ended after a 3-1 defeat to Huang Youzheng in the semi-finals.
Youzheng is the main story in Doha this week. A 3-1 win over Lee Seungsoo and then victories over Xu Haidong and Yuan Licen took him to the semi-finals where he defeated Artemekno. And in the final it was Huang Youzheng who defeated the Japanese Ryoichi Yoshiyama 3-2. Huang Youzheng, like Ruibo and others in the next crop of major Chinese players, is only 20 years old. He is currently number 43 in the world, but this is another player who is quickly rising in the rankings.
The next big event on the calendar is the Singapore Smash, which starts on February 19.
Visit ButterflyOnline.com for the latest table tennis news and results.
Share the post “Another week, another promising young Chinese player”
#week #promising #young #Chinese #player