The world’s best players converged on Hong Kong this week, with four turning up to play on the final day of the WTT Finals. World No. 1 Wang Chuqin had a strong performance against Alexis Lebrun, winning 4-1 to become the first to reach the semi-finals. Truls Moregard came from 0-2 down against Lin Yun-Ju to win 4-2 and punch his ticket to meet Chuqin in the semi-finals.
Lin Shidong won his second match 4-0 to advance. He had perhaps the toughest match in the opening round (against Liang Jingkun), and his second round match was against another Chinese teammate, Xiang Peng. But Shidong was sharp, especially in the second round, where he won those matches at 3, 7, 5 and 3. Tomokazu Harimoto is the semi-finalist who has faced the most pressure so far. Harimoto lost the first game in both of his matches, beating Simon Gauzy 4–2 in the opening round and then beating Felix Lebrun 11–9 in the final game of a 4–3 victory. Harimoto will face Shidong in the semi-finals on Sunday.
The women’s singles has already completed the semi-finals, and on Sunday Kuai Man and Wang Manyu will be in the final. Kuai Man won the first game and the third game, putting a lot of pressure on world number 1 Sun Yingsha. Yingsha tied the match twice, but appeared to struggle towards the end of the second game. She moved slowly and put ice on her left ankle during intermission after winning the competition. When the fifth game started, the first three points went to Kuai and a timeout was called. During the timeout, Yingsha went to the side for treatment on the ankle. Kuai Man won the match easily while her opponent struggled to move. After the 11-3 win, Sun Yingsha retired and handed the final match to Kuai Man. Kuai Man were never behind in the match and were leading 3-2 when the injury retreated.
A few hours later, after the treatment, Sun Yingsha did play in the mixed doubles final. She and Wang Chuqin (world number 1 combined with world number 1) were the top seeds. However, the story is about the couple from the Republic of Korea, Lim Jonghoon and Shin Yubin. They defeated Lin Shidong and Kuai Man in the semi-finals 3-1 and then defeated Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha 3-0 in the final. They are the first Korean players to win a title at the WTT Finals.
The action continues on Sunday with the Singles Finals.
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