(By Steve Hopkins)
The old saying “Third Time’s A Charm” sounded today for Shunsuke Togami when his third trip to a WTT Final yielded his first career WTT event championship at the WTT -Contender series Event in Almatic, Kazakhstan.
Togami caught fire today and took the first two games on the Chinese Zhou Qihao easy-with 11-5 and 11-8 victories. Qihao then assembled a comeback and won the next two games at 8 and 7. The last two games were tight everywhere, with Togami both (11-9 and 13-11) to close the match 4-2.
In accordance with the them of “Threes”, today the Japanese Honoka Hashimoto won her third WTT -Singles title with a straight set of victory on the Chinese Qin Yuxuan. Hashimoto also collaborated with Hitomi Sato to win women’s doubles. The other two Doubles titles went to Chinese teams with Yuan Licen and Xu Yingbin winning men’s doubles and Huang Youzheng and Shi Xunyao who won mixed Doubles.
The other big stories in Almaty were in earlier action. The speed of 21 -year -old Ryoichi Yoshiyama ruled over Darko Jorgic while taking out the best seed of the event. Yoshiyama fought through a heavy early draw, Xue Fei defeated 3-2, Gyuhyeon Park 3-2 and Jorgic before he fell on the final winner Togami. On the women’s side, the 18 -year -old Chinese player Qin Yuxuan waves. She got up from the 10th seed in the event (World No. 43) all the way to the final.
The Tour’s attention now goes to Macao, where a WTT Champions series event starts on Tuesday.
Four finals are on tap for Sunday. Visit Butterflyonline.com for the latter in Table Tennis News and results.
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