Dang Qiu wins WTT London

(by Steve Hopkins)

Dang Qiu benefited from some setbacks in his half of the draw at this week’s WTT Star Contender Series event in London. Qiu’s first match was a 3–1 win over Hong Kong’s Chan Baldwin (after Chan upset Eduard Ionescu in the opening round). Qiu then defeated Manav Thakkar easily (3-0) to advance to what could have been a quarter-final match against Dimirij Ovtcharov, but Kay Stumper upset Ovtcharov – so Qiu advanced to the semi-finals after beating Stumper 3-0. And in the semifinals, Qiu again did not face one of the top seeds, as Darko Jorgic was upset by Kristian Karlsson and Yukiya Uda was upset by Milosz Redsimski. It was Redzimski, the 19-year-old Pole, who emerged from that part of the draw to take on Qiu – and Qiu won a tight battle 3-2 to reach the final.

The other half of the draw was much more ‘standard’, with the top four seeds reaching the quarters, where top-seeded Harimoto defeated Anders Lind and then Lin Yun-Ju topped Sora Matsushima. This left Harimoto and Yun-Ju in the semi-finals – a match that Harimoto won 3-1.

Dang Qiu and Tomokazu Harimoto basically fought to a draw through the first four matches – with each match ending in a draw and one player taking the final two points for the narrow victory. Unfortunately for Harimoto, it was Qiu who won the first three of those close matches, leading 3-1 after four games (13-11, 12-10, 14-12, 9-11). Harimoto then recorded an easy victory (11-7) to tighten the score. But Qiu sealed the victory with another 2-point victory, a 12-10 match to win the match 4-2 and claim the London title.

Another Harimoto reached the women’s final, as top seed Miwa Harimoto navigated the event, defeating three Japanese teammates from her five wins to claim the title. Harimoto defeated Honoka Hashimoto 3-1 in one semifinal. Hina Hayata won the other semi-final 3-1 against Cheng I-Cheng. And despite Hayata winning the first two matches, it was Harimoto who took four of the last five matches to seal the victory.

The tour continues its route through Europe, with the WTT Champions Montpellier starting on Tuesday and the WTT Champions Frankfurt starting on November 4.

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