(by Steve Hopkins)
There was a moment on Wednesday when Lee Sang Su was up a game on World No. 1 Fan Zhendong, where this tournament could have been turned on its ear with nearly all of the top seeds out before the Quarterfinals. However, Fan righted the ship and ran off three wins in a row. And second seed (and World No. 2), Wang Chuqin advanced easily.
Still, after a Tuesday that saw both Ma Long and Harimoto fall in upsets, Wednesday was full of even more surprises. First, European Champion Dang Qiu fell 3-0 to Lin Shidong – a tight first game went to Shidong 14-12 and then he coasted through two easy games. Shidong will face Fan Zhendong on Thursday. And in the second major upset, one of France’s rising stars, Alexis Lebrun, swapped 11-9 tight games with Truls Moregard before dominating the final two games to advance. And in the last game of the day, it was Germany’s Ruwen Filus over World No. 5 Hugo Calderano 3-1. In one of the few non-upset wins, Liang Jingkun also topped Mattias Falck.
When we started the event, the World’s Top 8 men were all present to compete. As we move into Thursday’s Quarterfinals, only three of those eight players remain (Fan, Chuqin, and Jingkun).
There is often less intrigue on the Women’s side of these events. Their Quarterfinals are now set, and it is seven of the event’s top eight seeds left. The top five Chinese players (Sun, Cheng, Yidi, Chen, and Manyu), the top two Japanese players (Ito and Hayata), and the one surprise – Korea’s Shin Yubin. Shin defeated the 8th seed, Germany’s Ying Han, 3-1 to advance.
The Quarterfinals are set for Thursday – and some great table tennis is on tap for the weekend. We’ll have more updates soon.
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