(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
In a strong event with seven players in the World Top 25, and great competitors like World No. 4 Hugo Calderano, World No. 10 Dimitrij Ovtcharov, and World No. 13 Dang Qiu, it took a lot of upsets before the final could feature World No. 30 Marcos Freitas, and World No. 58 Kao Cheng-Jui.
To start things off, the top two seeds both fell in the first round. Slovenia’s defensive specialist Yang Wang swept past Hugo Calderano 3-0 after winning two games 12-10 and the third 11-8. Portugal’s Joao Geraldo had a similar win over Dimitrij Ovtcharov – with the players trading the first two games, but Geraldo winning the final two for the 3-1 win. Neither Geraldo nor Wang could capitalize on their upset wins as both were bounced out in the next round.
Alexis Lebrun was the third seed, and he had trouble in both of his early matches. Lebrun needed at 13-11 fifth game win to put away Puerto Rico’s Brian Afanador, and then Lebrun was upset by Marcos Freitas in the next round. Dang Qiu, who for a short time was Europe’s top player, managed to win three rounds, but the fourth seed was upset by Taipei’s 18 year old Kao.
The real story in Lima was those last two upsets. That is, Marcos Freitas didn’t just upset Lebrun in the second round, he then went on to upset Lim Jonghoon and Jonathan Groth on his way to the Final. And Kao was the underdog in all of his matches and he didn’t just defeat Qiu, he also topped Fanbo Meng, Quadri Aruna, and Alvaro Robles. When all the dust settled, it was Marcos Freitas of Portugal over Kao Cheng-Jui of Taipei in the World No. 30 versus World No. 58 Final. In that Final, Kao won the first game, but then lost the next four. In the end, there were three close games and Freitas’ experience prevailed in all three. 4-1 Freitas.
The upsets in Women’s singles were less pronounced. The Final was between the second seed Shin Yubin and the fifth seed Bernadette Szocs (with Yubin winning 4-1). Other interesting matches included top seed Mima Ito losing to teammate Miyuu Kihara 3-1. Japan’s Miu Hirano fell to an upset early, but Miwa Harimoto advanced to the semifinals (another good and bad set of offsetting stories for Team Japan). Lily Zhang lost in the first round to France’s Prithika Pavade 3-1. Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz won two matches before falling to finalist Szocs in the Quarters.
On last note on doubles – TeamUSA’s Jinbao Ma and Jishan Liang defeated Puerto Rico’s Brian Afanador and Daniel Gonzalez in their matchup, but fell in the Quarters to the Korean team of Lee Sang Su and Cho Daeseong.
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