by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

An enthralling contest, it was the consistency of Wang Manyu that eventually prevailed in the battle of the World Junior champions; Chen Meng was the winner in Bahrain in 2011, when she completed a clean sweep of titles, Wang Manyu emerged successful in both Shanghai in 2014 and the following year in La Roche sur Yon.

“I have never won against her on the international stage and I lost to her twice on the World Tour this year, both in the final, so actually I wasn’t very confident prior to the match today. The crucial part today was the mental game, during our last encounter when I was leading, I got impatient and eventually lost, so today was mainly to adjust my mentality on court to avoid making the same mistake.” Wang Manyu

Success for Wang Manyu followed success for colleague, Sun Yingsha; the no.4 seed, she accounted for Hong Kong’s Doo Hoi Kem in four straight games (11-7, 11-2, 11-6, 11-8) and thus repeated previous successes.

Earlier this year on the Seamaster 2017 ITTF World Tour, she beat Doo Hoi Kem in opening round in Japan and in China; as in Linz in four straight games on each occasion.

Sun Yingsha now meets Wang Manyu in the penultimate round; the match to be played later in the day.