by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Manager
In fact, arguably it was 15 year old Truls Moregard who caused the biggest upset in the quest for main draw places.
After accounting for Romania’s Ovidiu Ionescu (11-4, 10-12, 3-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-6), he ousted India’s Sharath Kamal Achanta, winner on the ITTF World Tour in 2010 in Cairo; the Swedish teenager won in six games (11-8, 9-11, 11-5, 6-11, 11-8, 13-11).
“I was able to control my emotions at the key points and my shot selection was really good which allowed me to control the speed of the game.” Truls Moregard
Defeat for Sharath Kamal Achanta on what proved not the best of evenings for India, Chinese Taipei’s Sun Chia-Hung beat both Sanil Shetty (11-7, 11-5, 11-8, 11-9) and Harmeet Desai (11-6, 6-11, 11-9, 11-5, 9-11, 5-11, 11-8), whilst Sathiyan Gnanasekaran experienced defeat at the hands of Frenchman Quentin Robinot (11-6, 11-7, 11-9, 11-7).
Equally impressively, one round earlier, Quentin Robinot had overcome Brazil’s Cazuo Matsumoto (11-9, 11-8, 11-8, 11-5); thus in consecutive matches he beat former ITTF World Tour Men’s Singles champions. Cazuo Matsumoto won in 2013 in Spain, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran in 2016 in Belgium.
Meanwhile, matching the performance of Truls Moregard, Kirill Gerassimenko ousted Sweden’s Pär Gerell (7-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-4) followed by Poland’s Jakub Dyjas (4-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-5, 9-11, 2-11, 11-5) to reserve his main draw place.
However, there was no detracting from the performance of the Chinese quartet but it was not by any means a comfortable time. Liu Dingshuo emerged successful against Panagiotis Gionis of Greece by the very narrowest of margins (7-11, 9-11, 11-2, 11-7, 4-11, 11-4, 12-10).
“It was a very difficult match to control I had to play it point by point.” Liu Dingshuo.
Likewise, Xu Chenhao needed the full seven games to overcome Ukraine’s Yevhen Pryshchepa (8-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-13, 6-11, 11-8, 11-2), after having beaten the Czech Republic’s Tomas Konecny (9-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-7, 11-8), the winner in 2016 in Bulgaria.
Close calls; for Wang Chuqin life was less dramatic, he ended Russian hopes by beating Kirill Skachkov (11-8, 13-11, 11-9, 13-11) and Alexey Liventsov (6-11, 5-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-7, 11-6). Somewhat similarly, Xue Fei was not extended the full distance, after ousting the Czech Republic’s Lubomir Jancarik (11-6, 11-7, 6-11, 11-4, 4-11, 11-5), he caused India more pain by overcoming Soumyajit Ghosh (11-7, 11-9, 8-11, 11-8, 11-8).
Success, in addition Portugal’s Tiago Apolonia and João Geraldo booked main draw places as did Sweden’s Jon Persson, Germany’s Patrick Franziska and Chinese Taipei’s Liao Cheng-Ting. In a similar vein there was also success for Singapore’s Gao Ning, Austria’s Stefan Fegerl and Denmark’s Zhai Yujia.
Play in the main draw begins on Thursday 17th January.
