By Neha Aggarwal
They beat Russia ‘A’ in the finals in a smooth 3-0 win. Feng Yi-Hsin started with a thunderous win over the singles champion Artur Abusev 3-1 ( 4-11, 11-2, 11-3, 11-9) to give Chinese Taipei a 1-0 head start..
Next came Li Hsin-Yang, ranked no.25th in Under-18 May 2017 world ranking, who commanded a convincing win over Denis Ivonin in four games (7-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-5), giving his team a 2-0 lead.
Finally, Tai Ming-Wei for Chinese Taipei wrapped up the tie winning over Nikita Artemenko in a nail biting 3-2 win (11-7, 10-12, 19-17, 9-11, 11-7), thus capturing the Junior Boys’ team title of the 2017 ITTF World Junior Circuit Spanish Junior and Cadet Open.
The coach of Chinese Taipei reacted to the win and said:
“It was hard for our players to adapt to the time difference, but now that we are in the 4th day of competition they adapted and felt better. They showed today their best and won”
In the semi-finals, Chinese Taipei beat France in an extremly close 3-2 encounter. Feng Yi-Hsin started off beating Bilal Hamache 3-1. In the next match, France leveled up when Zheng Dorian won over Li Hsin-Yang 3-2. Moving ahead, France took a 2-1 lead as Jules Cavaille out staged Tai Ming-Wei 3-1. But, the boys from Chinese Taipei fought back from two straight wins from Li Hsin-Yang and Feng Yi-Hsin each, thus winning 3-2.
In the second semi-finals, Russia ‘A’ was too strong for Germany as they captured a 3-0 win. Denis Ivonin, Artur Abusev and Nikita Artemenko were too strong for the Germans, Gerrit Engemann, Meng Fanbo and Cedric Meissner.
Disappointment came from the Japanese boys as both Japan ‘A’ and ‘B’ lost n the quarter-finals to France and Germany respectively. The disappointment however turned into happiness as the Japanese girls won the Junior Girls’ team title.
