(by Steve Hopkins)
As the sun sets this Sunday, at the end of the first week of the Paris Games, there are a number of great Week 1 table tennis story lines on which to reflect. USA’s Kanak Jha was the first American male to reach the Round of 16 in Olympic singles, and USA’s Lily Zhang equaled that task for the Women (and with Lily Zhang finished 2-1, and Kanak Jha finishing 3-1, and Amy Wang was 1-1, a strong overall record for American singles players). Truls Moregard upset World No. 1 Chuqin and pushed through to the Final – Truls is quickly gaining a reputation for playing his best on the biggest stages. Fan Zhendong secured gold despite not being the top seed. Seventeen-year-old Felix Lebrun secured Bronze for France. And how about the parity in the Men’s event with the final 8 players each from a different country, 4 from Asia (Fan, Harimoto, Yun-Ju, Woojin), 2 from Europe (Lebrun, Moregard), one from South America (Calderano), and one from Africa (Assar) – with two of the three medals going to European countries. The Women’s event was more predictable with Cheng Meng defending her 2020 title in what was a repeat of that Finals (Sun Yingsha finished second). That All-China Women’s Final was between the top two seeds, and third seeded Hina Hayata of Japan took the Bronze (with a win over the fourth seed, Shin Yubin).
In today’s Final, Truls Moregard struck first with an 11-7 win over Fan Zhendong. Fan, however, swept the final four games 11-9, 11-9, 11-8, 11-8. Moregard started the match with some careful backhand play, a strategy that worked initially – making Fan create more spin to play those backhand rallies (and not play in rhythm generating power from consistent top spin as is normally the pattern). Fan adjusted quickly, and eventually the two continued to turn up the pace taking big swings from both sides – and entertaining the crowd. Felix Lebrun secured the Bronze medal with an emotional 4-0 win in front of a home crowd. The 17 year old Frenchman started on fire, and never looked back. 11-6, 12-10, 11-7, 11-6.
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