(by Steve Hopkins)
Americans have featured prominently at this year’s US Open in Las Vegas. Jha and Jinbao join Kanamitsu and Yu in the Semifinals of Men’s Singles, and on the Women’s side, Amy Wang (NJ) and Yan Guo (TX) will face each other, while a pair of Japanese players will face off in the other Semi.
Defending National Champion, Kanak Jha logged a 4-1 victory over TeamUSA teammate Jishan Liang to reach the Semifinal. Jha has been pretty dominant, with 3-1, 3-0, 3-0, and 4-1 wins to this point. Jha will face Nakamitsu Koyo, an athletic attacker who was a promising U19 player in Japan before relocating to Australia (and now a part of MLTT and a coach in California). These two faced each other in the Swedish Open in 2018 with Koyo winning 3-1.
In the other half of the draw, USA’s second highest ranked player, Ma Jinbao needed a seven game comeback to reach the Semifinal. He fell behind 0-3 (including losing the third game at 1) before winning four straight over Korea’s Taehyun Kim. Jinbao will face Japanese player Kayama Yu. When these two last faced each other at the LA Open, Jinbao won a tight match.
On the women’s side, Guo Yan upset tournament top seed Nina Mittelham 4-2, a long match with tight games that included a 17-15 score in one of her losses. She will face Amy wang who also needed 7 games in her win over Liu Gaoyang. An upset in the bottom half of the draw, paved the way for Minami Ando to advance easily. Canada’s Mo Zhang was the second seed, but she fell to Hana Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto was unable to sustain the momentum from that win, losing to Ando in the Quarters. Ando will face Asuka Sasao who has lost only one game in her three wins thus far.
Singles action will continue today.
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