Top seed and world number one Xu Xin (left) prepares to serve during his first round match against Denmark’s Sternberg Kasper at the 2013 Qatar Open Table Tennis Championships, at the Qatar Women’s Sport Hall in Aspire Zone yesterday. PICTURES BY: KAMMUTTY VP
BY DENZIL PINTO
DOHA: After ending the hopes of Qatar’s Aya Majdi earlier, Germany’s Jiaduo Wu suffered a shock loss to compatriot Xiaona Shan in the second round at the Qatar Open 2013 Table Tennis Championships in Doha yesterday.
Seventh seed Wu, who had beaten Majdi in straight games (11-4, 11-4, 11-3, 11-2) in the first round, went down 8-11, 7-11, 9-11, 11-13 in the second round at Qatar Women’s Sports Hall at Aspire Zone.
In another upset in the second round, sixth seed Huajan Jiang of Hong Kong, also exited the $212,000 tournament after losing in seven games to Austria’s Amelie Solja. The Austrian won 5-11, 12-10, 14-12, 11-13, 11-3, 11-8, 11-7.
Eighth seed Iveta Vacenovska of Czech Republic was also sent home after losing to Ukraine’s Margaryta Pesotska in five games in the first round. Pesotska won 8-11, 12-10, 11-9, 11-4, 11-3.
As expected, China’s top players advanced to the third round after easy victories in the first and second rounds.
In the men’s singles, defending champion and top seed Xin Xu ended the hopes of Singapore’s Hu Liu in four games (11-4, 11-5, 11-4, 11-6) in round two.
The world number one, had earlier beaten Denmark’s Kasper Sternberg 4-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-9, 11-5).
Second seed Jike Zhang, who recently clinched the Kuwait Open title, also advanced to today’s third round after beating France’s Christophe Legout 4-1 (11-4, 11-6, 11-5, 9-11, 11-5). The Chinese, had earlier beaten Asuka Sakai of Japan in four games (11-7, 11-4, 11-9, 11-2).
There was no trouble for third and fourth seeds Ma Long and Hao Wang. Long overcame Hong Kong’s Yuk Cheung by four games to one (11-6, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8, 11-6) in the second round.
Wang, who beat qualifer El Sayed Lashin of Egpyt in the first round, ended the hopes of Korea’s Eonrae Cho in four games (11-2, 11-6, 11-3, 11-5).
Elsewhere, Janos Jakab of Hungary stunned eleventh seed Weixing Chen in the first round.
Jakab, ranked 57 in the world rankings registered a 12-10, 7-11, 11-4, 7-11, 6-11, 11-5, 11-5 victory over the world number 24.
However, Jakab could not repeat his performance, losing to Austria’s Robert Gardos in the second round.
In the women’s category, world number one and top seed Ning Ding registered 4-0 victories against Egpyt’s Galila Nasser (11-2, 11-5, 11-5, 11-3) and Hong Kong’s Nam Wing NG (11-4, 11-6, 11-7, 11-4).
Elsewhere, Qatar’s Noori Al Abri saw her hopes of advancing dashed after losing to second seed Liu Shiwen of China (11-2, 11-3, 11-1, 11-2).
Shiwen, who won the World Cup in 2009 and 2011, later beat compatriot Yan Zhao 4-0 (11-4, 11-3, 11-6, 11-4) to book her place in the third round today.
Third seed and Olympic champions Li Xiaoxia also advanced to today’s round after beating Korea’s Eunchong Yoo and Japan’s Shiho Matsudaira.
Matsudaira had earlier caused an upset by beating 17th seed Yi-Hua Huang of China Taipese.
Huang, went down in seven games (11-5, 15-17, 11-7, 12-10, 7-11, 6-11, 12-14).
Third round and quarter-final matches will take place today.
THE PENINSULA
