by Simon Daish
On the road to the final Ning Jing had faced a number of difficult opponents including the likes of Russia’s Kristina Kazantseva and the top seed Sabina Surjan of Serbia.
However, Ning Jing still required one more victory to complete her title defence and the competitor awaiting the no.10 seed in the final was Romania’s Tania Plaian, who booked her spot in the gold medal contest with an impressive comeback win over Ekaterina Zironova (7-11, 13-11, 9-11, 3-11, 12-10, 12-10, 11-3) earlier in the day.
With confidence on her side and the backing of the home corwd Tania Plaian could have potentially proved to be a very tricky player to negotiate but Ning Jing wasn’t fazed by the challenge, running out as the comfortable winner (11-7, 11-8, 11-4, 11-7) to break the hearts of the local spectators.
Disappointment for the hosts with Tania Plaian’s defeat at the final hurdle but in the Cadet Girls’ Singles final Romania experienced very different emotions as Elena Zaharia produced a title winning performance.
Trailing Elizabet Abraamian by a two games deficit, Elena Zaharia won the next four games in a row to beat the top seed from Russia in a dramatic six games battle (7-11, 7-11, 12-10, 11-9, 13-11, 11-6).
