Shock Defeat for Top Seed and Defending Champion, New Name to Note
Courtesy of ITTF
May 13, 2014 – Zhang Kai, very much a newcomer to the international scene and playing in his first ITTF Junior Circuit Tournament, caused the biggest upset on the third day of action, Wednesday May 13th, at the Butterfly Canadian Junior and Cadet Open in Markham.
Against all expectations in his opening group stage contest, he beat United States compatriot, Kanak Jha, the top seed and defending champion in a five games contest (11-7, 7-11, 11-6, 11-6).
Success in his opening duel, in his concluding engagement, he overcame Canada’s Zhang Wenbin in three straight games (11-5, 11-1, 11-5) to secure top place in the group and a passport directly to the quarterfinals.
Second Place in Group
Defeat for Kanak Jha but the door remains open. Players finishing in first and second places in each of the six groups advanced to the second stage, second place in the group was his lot.
He accounted for Zhang Wenbin in four games (11-9, 11-4, 11-13, 11-6) and thus secured a place in the opening round of proceedings, where he reserved a last eight berth by overcoming the host nation’s Moxi Guo (11-7, 11-5, 11-5, 11-7).
Last Eight Places Booked
Problems for the top seed but not for the other leading names on duty; they secured first places in their respective groups and thus advanced directly to the round of the last eight.
All from the United States it was first place in the group for Jack Wang, the no.2 seed as it was for Kunal Chodri and Krishnateja Avvari, the next in line.
Impressive Form
Jack Wang finished his group ahead of colleague Michael Minh Tran and Canada’s Frederik Dufresne, while next in line to Kunal Chodri came Theodore Tran, also from the United States.
Canada’s Brian Ho finished in third position, with the host nation’s Li Xuebo, fourth.
Impressive form from Kunal Chodri, it was the same from Krishnateja Avvari. He concluded his first stage group matches ahead of Canada’s Moxi Guo with the He Jiaming, also from the United States next in the order of merit. Li Xuebo from the host nation ended matters in fourth spot.
Top Three Untroubled
Meanwhile, in the Junior Girls’ Singles event where there were three groups in the initial stage of proceedings, it was pole position for the top three names.
Similar to the Junior Boys’ Singles event, the United States was dominant with Prachi Jha, Crystal Wang and Angela Guan finishing their group stage matches ahead of Canadian rivals.
Next in order to Prachi Jha came Alicia Cote and Sidonie Barey-Caron; Crystal Wang finished ahead of Liu Jiabao and Jean Fei, while Vida Sieu, Amy Nicholls and Justina Yeung trailed Angela Guan.
Finals
Play concludes on Thursday May 14th.
