(By Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
Eight players fought through the qualifications to reach the main drawing at the China Smash, the premiere WTT event that was played in Beijing this week. Samuel Kulczycki van Polen came from one group of eight and won three games, including a 3-1 victory over Ma Jingbao of the US. The other qualifications are Kazachstan’s Kirill Gerassimenko, Maciej Kubik from Poland, Ankur Bhattacha by India, Kazuki Hamada in Japan, Eduard Ionescu from Romania and two Chinese players – Chen Junsong and Yuan Licen. The qualifications now go to the main table, to participate in the first round of 64 players.
In the top fourth of the draw, world no. 1, Wang Chuqin will be confronted in the opening round opposite Jang Woojin. Three of the four players from the Republic of Korea are in the same part of the draw with Woojin, Lee Sang Su and a Jaehyun that has to come by (and Chuqin) to go to the quarterfinals. If Chuqin continues with seed, he would be confronted with Liang Jingkun in the quarterfinals that Yingkunde beyond Darko Jorgic and Patrick Franziska and Lin Gaoyuan.
In the second fourth of the draw, the top seeds are Hugo Calderano and Benedikt Duda. This part of the trek otherwise includes Lind, Simon Gauzy and Xu Yingbin. The third quarter of the draw contains Felix Lebrun and Tomokazu Harimoto. Dimitrij OVTcharov, Alexis Lebrun and Dang Qiu will each fight to repel the top seeds and earn their own birth to the quarters. The last part of the draw has World No. 2 Lin Shidong and Truls Moregard as the best seeds. CANAK JHA of the US is in this section and will be confronted on Monday afternoon with Shunsuke Togami. Other high seeds in this section are Lin Yun-Ju and Anton Kallberg.
Jessica Reyes Lai from the US won her opening qualification before he fell to NG Wing Lam van Hong Kong (the group winner). Sally Moyland and Jiangshan Guo from the US each lost their opening match. When action starts in the main drawing, Lily Zhang of the US opposite Sabine Winter (Sunday evening) will be confronted and Amy Wang of the US opposite Prithika Pavade (on Monday evening). Adriana Diaz of Puerto Rico has signed the Japanese Honoka Hashimoto and the Mo Zhang of Canada will come across the Chinese Zhu Sibing.
Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we will have more updates soon.
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