By Francis Ajuonuma
Korea and China dominated events at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Lagos 2023 which ended yesterday at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Indoor Sports Hall Teslim Balogun Stadium Surulere Lagos with both countries sharing the titles 3 to 2.
Korea won the women’s doubles, men’s doubles and women’s singles while the Chinese took the mixed doubles and men’s singles.
In the women’s singles Korea’s Shin Yu-bin defeated Li Yake by 4-2 in best-of-seven games which ended at 4/11, 11/9, 11/5, 11/2, 9/11 and 11/6 in a well-contested match that kept spectators at the edge of their seats.
In the women’s double, the Koreans also proved their superiority over the Chinese, with the pair of Jeon Jihee and Shin Yubin overwhelming the pair of Fan Siqi and Liu Weishan by 3-1 in the best-of-five match. The Koreans won the game 7/11,14/12, 11/8 and 11/6.
Korea’s Jang Woojin and Lim Jonghoon went ahead to also beat the Chinese pair of Yuang Licen and Xiang Peng 3-1 (12/10, 11/4, 7/11 and 11/8) in the men’s doubles.
However, Zhou Qihao gave the Chinese another title to rejoice with as he defeated crowd favourite, Dimitrij Ovtcharov of Germany 4-1 in the men’s singles final which ended 7/11, 6/11, 8/11,11/7, and 7/11. The Chinese had on Friday won the mixed double at the expense of Korea.
Speaking defeat after failing to win the men’s singles, Ovtcharov said he is happy getting to the final but was unable to cross the line to victory, thanking the Lagos fans for their overwhelming support throughout the tournament.
“So, I am really really happy to make it to the finals here. It was an incredible experience and I can’t remember, but when the players got so much support from the audience, we could really see that the fans, the table tennis fans in Lagos are really table tennis and sports fans. I received incredible support and it means a lot and we really enjoyed playing here in this venue. It was great.
“Making it to the final, of course, was a great run. Pity I couldn’t pick up my game today, I think I had great chances in the first set. I was up 7-5, and there were two relatively easy balls that I didn’t lob home. The momentum was shifting there,” he said.
“I started to play worse and he started to play better. Then, I was coming back, but at the end, I came short. My opponent played really well today and deserved the victory but I take lots of positive stuff here away from this event and I will build on that. I am excited already to come back next year.
“So next week, I am going to Poland. We are playing the European games there and it is a very big event, representing Germany. All the different sports and we will fight together for the trophy, so I can take away lots of self confidence from the success yeah,” he added.
For Yu-bin of Korea her victory in the women’s singles was made possible by hard work.
“I’m very glad to win this match. I prepared very well for this match and I also practiced well. For the WTT Contender tournament in Tunisia, I will really try my best. But for this match, I am very happy.
Total of $75,000 was at staked in the eight days tournament which offers players opportunity to amass points for ranking and for 2024 Paris Olympics.
