In the men’s category, Japanese Harimoto Tomokazu can still take the gold from the Chinese, but in the women’s category, no one has a chance, and the fate of the first place will be decided in the final on home soil.
| Japan’s 19-year-old Harimoto Tomokazu is on the cusp of another big hit (Photo: WTT) |
The WTT series, and thus the first Champions competition in the history of the sport, is approaching its final match, on Saturday, the two finals will only take place at the BOK Hall in Budapest. The field and the standard were worthy of championship rankings – after Grand Smash, the second strongest event on the international competition calendar – members of the global elite had to work hard to advance, and there were some even bigger stars, including five-time Olympic champion and 12-time world champion Ma Long of China , who could not even reach the top four. This new type of competition was not spared even from the Chinese, for example, in the men’s category, four could start, but unusually, only the one who was considered the least likely to do it in advance, the world ranking -20. Lin Kao-Gwan has reached the finals, where he will have to fight the Japanese super teen, Harimoto Tomokazu, who is still only 19 years old and holds several records.
However, for the women, it is simply impossible to upset the Chinese, as is almost always the case in important tournaments, they presented all four players in the semi-finals, and even pay attention to the paper format, the top four in the world rankings reached the top four. To give it some surprise, in the end the two of them didn’t even rank high, but Fang Man Guo III and Fang Gut IV could fight for the gold medal.
WTT SERIES, CHAMPIONS, BOK HALL
men. some. semi-finals
Harimoto (Japan) – Franziska (Germany) 4:3 (3, -6, 8, -6, 5, -8, 6)
Lin Cao Yuan (China) – Chuang Chi-yuan (Taiwan) 4: 0 (0, 6, 6, 7)
Women. some. semi-finals
Wang Man Yu (China) – Ching Min (China) 4:3 (–4, -7, 5, 9, -9, 7, 6)
Wang GT (China) – Sun Jing Sha (China) 4:3 (-10, 8, 8, -7, 2, -13, 8)
