(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
Manchester is usually a soccer town, but this week the industrial hub in Northwestern England (with two of the best soccer clubs in Europe) was host to a WTT Feeder Series event. The top seed in the Men’s Singles event was England’s own Liam Pitchford, and the top seed in the Women’s Singles event was USA’s Lily Zhang. Each of the top seeds started strong with a pair of wins leading in to the weekend, but while England’s top seeded entrant fell out in the Quarters, USA’s top seed dominated all the way to the Finals Sunday evening.
For Lily Zhang, she logged wins over Stefanova and Madarasz in the early rounds before defeateing Ukraine’s Solomiya Brateyko 3-0 in the Quarters and Debora Vivarelli of Italy in the Smifinals. The second seed in the Women’s event, Kim Nayeong lost in the second round making room for Poland’s Natalia Bajor to advance to the Semifinals without needing an upset. She then topped Taipei’s Huang Yi0Hua 3-0 to reach the Final.
In the Final, the first game went to Bajor 11-9. The second game may have decided the match – picking up from 10-10, Zhang missed a crosscourt backhand long, Bajor then misplayed a safe backhand into the net, Bajor then played a great combination from her backhand including a chop block and then a flat-hit winner to take the lead a second time, Zhang countered with a strong shot of her own moving to her right to hit her backhand from her normal forehand position but then hitting that backhand return crosscourt back to Bajor’s forehand for a clear winner, the two then had a long topspin rally that Bajor won for yet another lead, Zhang then played heavy backhand top followed by two blistering attacks for an easy win again, and then Zhang put the game away with two forehand winners. That second game tied the match score, but it had a bigger effect – with momentum clearly with Zhang she logged an easy game win by an 11-3 score. The final game was tighter, with the two tied at 7 at one point, but Zhang immediately went up 9-7 and then hung on to that two-point lead through to the 11-9 win.
Lily has finished second four previous times. Today is her first WTT win, and she did so in dominating fashion losing only 4 games in five matches.
On the Men’s side, host England had seven men in the draw (of 32). Top seeded Liam Pitchford, Tom Jarvis, and Paul Drinkhall each advanced to the Round of 16. Jarvis lost to second seeded Anders Lind as Pitchford and Jarvis both advanced to the Quarters. However, the hopes of the hosts ended there, with Pitchford upset by Matteo Mutti of Italy, and Drinkhall upset by Elias Ranefur (a Swedish player ranked No. 286 in the World) . Ranefur is probably the story of the tournament, actually – logging upset wins over Habesohn, Ionescu, and Drinkhall before defeating Italy’s Mutti in the Semifinals and then falling to Cho Daeseong of Korea. Daeseong had upset wins over Anders Lind and Martin Allegro on his way to a win – and his impressive stats include winning 15 games in his five matches without suffering a single loss.
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