(by Steve Hopkins)

With all ten of the ITTF Top 10 in attendance, the WTT’s Singapore Smash is the most competitive tournament of 2023 thus far.  Of those players, only Ovtcharov was upset in the opening Round.  Ovtcharov fell victim to Shunsuke Togami (the 21-year-old, fast-rising Japanese star who recently won the All-Japan Championship).  Ovtcharov was managing the match well – with wins in the first and third game, but Togami turned in two brilliant games for the comeback win.

Tiago Apolonia dominated Omar Assar 3-0 to advance (he’ll play Fan Zhendong tomorrow).  Iran’s Noshad Alamiyan caught Korea’s An  Jaehyun offguard for a 3-2 upset win – he’ll face another Korean, Lim Jonghoon in the next round. After topping Ovtcharov, Togami will face Joao Geraldo.  Robert Gardos will face Truls Moregard.  Canada’s Eugene Wang snuck by Benedek Olah 3-2 and will now face Wang Chuqin.  Singapore’s 16 year old qualifier Quek Izaac took out Sharath Kamal Achanta 3-0.  Izaac will face Mattias Falck (after Falck topped Patrick Franziska 3-2).  Lin Gaoyuan will face Jang Woojin, and Feng Yi-Hsin will face Liang Jingkun.  No surprises as Calderano will face Uda and Ort will face Jorgic – each topping a lower ranked opponent.

France’s Alexis Lebrun topped China’s Yuan Licen 3-1.  Lebrun will next face Quadri Aruna.  Another French player, Can Akkuzu advanced and will face Harimoto.  And Alexis’ younger penholding brother Felix Lebrun topped Simon Gauzy to advance – Felix will face Lin Yun-Ju. Dang Qiu will face Pang Yew, Chuang Chih-Yuan will face Lee Sangsu, and in an early powerhouse matchup – Lin Shidong will face Ma Long.

Key matches on the Ladies side included a 3-1 win by Adriana Diaz over Zhu Chengzhu.  Diaz will join Sun, Mittelham, Shan, Manyu, Yang, Hayata, Hirano, Yidi, Ito, Siqi, Meng and much of the rest of the World’s Top 25 in the next Round.  TeamUSA’s Lily Zhang had a tough draw as she faced Mima Ito – it was a tight match that ended with a 3-1 win for Ito.

Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we’ll have more updates soon.

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