First day of Round of 16 starting to reveal favorites
Yesterday saw the first day of the Round of 16 at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Champions Macao 2023 tournament, which started to unveil the favorites and shape up the final stage of the tournament.
Earlier in the day, the third day of the tournament started with the last of the matches of the Round of 32.
In the men’s group, Liang Jingkun (China) beat 3:0 the Portuguese Marcos Freitas in the penultimate match of the Round of 32, the same happening to another Chinese player Fan Zhendong who, this time, won 3:1 over Germany’s Patrick Franziska.
In the female group, the last matches of the Round of 32 also saw two Chinese players moving forward to the Round of 16 with Sun Yingsha and Wang Yidi winning easily and for the same score (3:0) over their opponents Hana Matelova (CZE) and Shan Xiaona (Germany).
As for the Round of 16, which started in the evening, Japan’s Mima Ito took on Taiwan’s Cheng I-Ching and became the first ranking name to be eliminated from the tournament.
Cheng gave almost no chances to Ito to breathe winning 3:1 with (11-4, 9-11, 11-1, 11-6).
Ito, a semifinalist at last year’s WTT Champions event in Macau, and 6th seed to this week’s event in Macau was seen as one of the key contenders in the Women’s Singles title race, and she had never lost a Round of 16’s match on the WTT Champions stage.
Her impressive streak ended yesterday with Cheng showing complete dominance of the match and moving into the final stage of the event.
In the men’s group was Tomokazu Harimoto (Japan), the first to move forward in the tournament after a 3:1 win over Hong Kong’s Wong Chun Ting.
Wong started the match better winning the first set 11-6 but Harimoto responded massively with three consecutive wins (7-11, 8-11, 3-11) putting an end to Wong’s hopes.
French player Alexis Lebrun was handed a Walkover win over Lin Yun-Ju (TPE) in a match that was only scheduled to take place today. The walkover win is likely to have been handed in advance due to the incapacity of the Taiwanese player to take part in the match this afternoon, handing to Lebrun a direct seat in the Quarterfinals.
