(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
The top seed is out and American Kanak Jha now heads into the Round of 16 in the position expected to be occupied by Hugo Calderano. The Calderano/Jha match started like many of their recent matches: an 11-4 win for Calderano put him in a dominant position, Jha fought back for a narrow 13-11 victory in the second and Calderano dominated the third to take the lead again (11-6). This time, however, it was Jha who fought from behind and finished the remaining games flawlessly – recording a pair of 11-9 victories and winning the match 3-2. Worst-case scenario, Jha has already secured 90 Ranking Points and $6,000 in prize money – and while I’m sure he plans to move on, 90 points is probably enough to move up two spots to number 22.
Jha and Calderano were one of the interesting “pairings” in this tournament. These two were the Pan Am finalists, and the winner (Jha) will now advance to face Lee Sang Su, who was paired with another player from the Republic of Korea (An Jaehyun). Of the sixteen matchups, six were natural pairs. Yukiya Uda will face Harimoto in an all-Japanese duo on Thursday, Anton Kallberg and Truls Moregard will play an all-Swedish duo on Thursday, Dan Qiu defeated German teammate Benedikt Duda today and Simon Gauzy defeated French teammate Lilian Bardet today and will meet French teammate Felix Lebrun on Thursday.
The other Round of 16 matchups include Jang Woojin vs. Lin Yun-Ju, Felix Lebrun vs. Simon Gauzy, Sora Matsushima vs. Patrick Franziska, Dang Qiu & Oh Junsung, and Darko Jorgic vs. Hiroto Shinozukua. Three first round matches remain to be played, with Ovtcharov, Moregard, Kallberg and Harimoto all set to play for the first time tomorrow.
The top seed in the women’s event is also out. Bernadette Szocs upset Chen Xingtong 3-0 on Tuesday in the 1 p.m. match. And interestingly, teammate Elizabeta Samara upset Mima Ito just an hour later. The two Romanians are now in the round of 16, and if they were both to win their next matches (Szocs faces Sabine Winter and Samara faces Doo Hoi Kem), they would face each other in the quarter-finals. American Lily Zhang had a 2-1 lead over Chen Yi of China, but could not hold it and fell 2-3. Second seed Kuai Man lost to Kim Nayeong of the Republic of Korea on Wednesday.
Much action still needs to be taken. Visit ButterflyOnline.com for the latest table tennis news and results.
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