(by Steve Hopkins, photo WTT)
Late Saturday, the Quarterfinal matches were played at the WTT Star Contender Chennai. Tomislav Pucar who earlier in the day upset top seed Harimoto, fell to Oh Junsung. Oh was the third seed in this section of the draw, the first of four surprise semifinalist.
The four seeded players in the second quarter of the draft were Groth, Wong, Robles, and Matsushima. Wong and Robles lost in the second round and Matsushima lost in the Round of 16. Flavien Cotton, a sixteen year old Frenchman, managed to eliminate three of those top four seeds. Cotton took out Robles in the second round 3-1, topped Matsushima 3-2 in the Round of 16. The biggest win for Cotton came in Quarterfinals when he defeated Jonathan Groth 3-0. Cotton next moves on to face Oh Junsung in the Semifinals on Sunday.
In the bottom half of the draw, two surprise contestants emerged to face each other in the Quarters. India’s Snehit Survajjala defeated Yukiya Uda and Sharath Achanta to reach the Quarters. Waiting for him was France’s Thibault Poret. Poret also scored a pair of upsets in his path to the Quarters, defeating Hwan Bae and Feng Yi-Hsin. Poret dominated the Quarterfinal matchup 3-1 and has advanced to face Manav Thakkar in the Semifinals tomorrow. The final fourth of the draw had two high rated players, An Jaehyun and Hugo Calderano. Both of the seeded players were upset, and Thakkar was the beneficiary of that draw. He defeated Finn Luu of Australia, then Bertelsmeier (who had upset An Jaehyun), and then Lim Jonghoon (who had taken out Calderano). Thakkar outlasted Jonghoon, with the two exchanging wins until Thakkar finally broke through and won the final game 11-1.
On Sunday, it will be Thibault Poret versus Manav Thakkar and Oh Junsung versus Flavien Cotton. None of the four were expected to reach the Semis, which means Chennai will also enjoy two surprise Finalists, and a surprise winner.
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