by Ian Marshall, Editor

A surprise defeat, arguably quite the reverse. Kyoka Kato, who will celebrate her 22nd birthday on Christmas Eve, won the Under 21 Women’s Singles event at the 2016 ITTF World Tour Belgium Open but in recent months has been absent from the international scene and thus has no current world ranking.

Defeat for Tin-Tin Ho; there was also an earlier than anticipated reverse for colleague Maria Tsaptsinos as there was the Dominican Republic’s Eva Brito; a situation that also applied to the host nation’s Angela Guan and Wang Xinyue.

All shared the no.5 seeded position; Maria Tsaptsinos experienced a second round defeat at the hands of China’s Jia Jun (9-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-3, 11-4), who then promptly lost to Japan’s Yuki Matsumoto (12-10, 11-9, 11-9, 11-8).

Similar to Jia Jun, in the third round, Angela Guan suffered against Japan as did Wang Xinyue; Angela Guan lost to Eka So (11-3, 11-6, 11-7, 11-9); Wang Xinyue departed at the hands of Miyuki Tamaishi (13-11, 11-8, 11-5, 14-12). Meanwhile, for Eva Brito it was farewell when facing a host nation adversary; she was beaten by Li Juan (11-8, 11-4, 11-7, 11-4).

Earlier than expected departures, it was almost the same the host nation’s Lily Zhang who shared the no.3 seeded spot alongside Tin-Tin Ho; she was extended the full seven games distance by compatriot Chi Ge only emerging successful by the minimum two point margin in the decider (11-5, 11-8, 5-11, 2-11, 8-11, 11-8, 11-9).

Success for Lily Zhang, for Wu Yue also from the United States and Germany’s Nina Mittelham, the respective top two seeds, it was third round success in a less dramatic manner. Wu Yue beat Angie Tan, also from the United States (11-3, 11-4, 11-7, 11-8); Nina Mittelham accounted for Japan’s Misaki Mori (11-8, 11-5, 11-6, 11-8).

2018 United States Open: Seeding and Results

2018 United States Open: Feature articles by Matt Hetherington and Richard Finn