Doha: Qatar’s Li Ping staged a brilliant fighback to advance into the pre-quarter-finals of GAC Group 2015 ITTF World Tour Qatar Open men’s singles, overcoming Hyundeok Seo of South Korea in what was longest battle in the first rounds, yesterday
But, it was the day of mixed fortunes for the hosts as Aia Mohamed lost her opening round match in the women’s singles, at the Women’s Sports Community Hall.
Experienced Li Ping who failed to enter the main round of recently-concluded Kuwait Open showed huge improvement as he fought back after dropping the first two games.
Seo claimed the first two games 8-11 and 9-11 involving long rallies, edging the home player with better accuracy.
But Li Ping refused to surrender as he came back strongly with an aggressive display and leveled the battle by winning the next two games 11-3 and 11-9.
After his South Korean opponent took the fifth game 7-11, Li Ping leveled the match again by taking the penultimate game 12-10 on a tie-breaker.
The Qatari player saved his best for the final game which he won 11-8 relatively with comfort to seal the 4-3 win.
The first round of men’s singles also saw Dimitrij Ovtcharov (Germany), Andrej Gacina (Croatia) and Daniel Gorak (Poland) winning their opening round matches. Meanwhile, Aia failed to replicate her performance of qualifying stage as she went down to Chen Lee 0-4 in one-sided affair.
In contrast, veteran Yanfei Shen of Spain maintained her form to enter the last-16 stage with a 4-2 victory over Georgina Pota of Hungary.
Dora Madarsaz of Hungary who reached the main round after beating Hong Kong’s Li Ching Wan in seven games fell against Elizebeta Samara of Romania in another marathon thriller.
THE PENINSULA
