(By Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
Action started on Sunday with half of the main table that saw action at the China Smash, where Smash events are the top category of WTT Tour events. All top 50 players are present on the men’s side, except no. 39 Yuta Tanaka. With so many top athletes in action, fans will certainly have an exciting week, because the draw is the final of the next weekend.
The first knockout round has 64 players, 56 present due to seed and 8 qualifications. With this number of matches (in Singles for men and women), half of the draw today played their opening match and half started on Monday. On the first day of action, Wang Chuqin and Hugo Calderano (seeds 1 and 3) each fell without too much pressure. This was the norm for the 16 games played, with 13 of the higher placed players as expected. There were three disturbances. The biggest surprise of the day was Taipei’s Feng Yi-hsin (World No. 62), that WORD no. 8 Benedikt Duda 3-0 furious. Duda never really started, with Feng won on 6, 5 and 7. World no. 26 Lee Sang Su fell 3-2 for Polish qualifying Milosz Redzimski (World No. 46). The other upset was the match between two more well-known players, where Patrick Franziska Darko Jorgic was 3-0 (no. 17 on no. 10). The other half of the first round games will be played on Monday – including the American Kanak Jha that is being waived against Shunsuke Togami opposite Shunsuke Togami at 12: 45p.
In early action on the women’s side, three of the four North American participants fell. Lily Zhang of the US lost 0-3 to the Sabine Winter of Germany, Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz fell 1-3 of the Japanese Honoko Hashimoto, and the Mo Zhang of Canada lost 1-3 to Zhu Sibing of China. The remaining player from our region is Amy Wang in the US, who will come across the Prithika Pavade of France on Monday evening.
Women’s action was largely due to seed. Sun Yingsha, Zhu Sibing, Honoka Hashimoto, Doo Hoi Kem, Sreeja Akula, Wang Yidi, Chen Xingtong, Xiaona Shan, Li Yun-Jhun, Bernadette Szocs, Chen Yi, Qian Tianyi, Bruna Takahashi, Zhu Yuling, Miwa Harimoto, en Sabine Winners. Just like the men, only half of the matches are played, so the remaining first round games will be played on Monday.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we will have more updates soon.
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