by Wade Townsend

Singapore’s Zeng Jian held off a comeback from China’s Chen Xingtongto win their round of 32 encounter.

Zeng took the opening three games 11-7, 11-7, 11-2 and looked in control of the match. Chen wasn’t going anywhere and completely changed the momentum of the game, putting three games on the board 5-11, 9-11, 4-11.

The match was going too long, at least for China’s coaching timetable. Ma Lin, who had been on Chen’s bench, moved court part way through the match. He had to look after China’s Lin Gaoyuan who was up against Germany’s Timo Boll in the round of 32 of the Men’s Singles. With no coach on the bench, Chen was left to her own devices.

Chen was seemingly overwhelmed in the final game, as Zeng took the game 11-6 to win the match.

On the same court just one match earlier China’s Fang Bo had also found himself three games to zero down against Kazuhiro Yoshimura. He came back and won. While the match before that, Japan’s Koki Niwa led three-nil against Germany’s Ruwen Filus. Filus brought the score level but Niwa was able to achieve the win.

Court two therefore provided three consecutive seven game matches, all that started off as three-nil leads.

The other tables were unable to put up a similar spectacle, with the matches relatively one sided.

Korea’s Jean Jihee provided the most interesting match with her win over Japan’s Sakura Mori (9-11, 11-8, 6-11, 13-11, 15-13, 11-8)). Meanwhile, crowd favourite and Japan’s best chance at winning the title, Miu Hirano, cruised to her win against defender Korean defender Suh Hyowon (11-8, 11-6, 11-4, 11-4).

Checkout the full results from the round of 32 of the Women’s Singles here.