Houstan: Top seed Fan Zhendong of China stormed to the men’s singles final after beating compatriot Liang Jingkun convincingly in the semi-finals of the 2021 Houston table tennis world championships.
Fan showed why he is the world’s top player as he defeated Liang 4-1 (11-5, 11-4, 11-9, 8-11, 13-11).
Fan raced to a 3-0 advantage early, winning the first three games 11-5, 11-4, 11-9. Liang managed to take a game off Fan in the fourth game, but his fightback fizzled out as the number one seed clinched the fifth game 13-11 to seal his passage to the final.
Fan will battle against Truls Moregard of Sweden in Monday’s final, who shocked German evergreen Timo Boll in the semifinal.
The 19-year-old Swedish has underlined his growing credentials with sterling performances all week, stunning his more illustrious opponents, including Ahmed Saleh, Chuang Chih-Yuan, Patrick Franziska, Lim Jonghoon and Quadri Aruna.
On the women’s singles part, Sun Yingsha is set to take on Wang Manyu in an all-Chinese women’s singles final after she defeated Wang Yidi 4-1 whilst Wang Manyu showed she could match up to the might of her compatriot and world No. 1 Chen Meng as she rallied from two games down to oust Chen 4-3.
(IANS)