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Fort Lauderdale, Florida • July 3-7, 2002

 

Men's & Women's Quarterfinal Action

By Larry Hodges

Women

The women's quarterfinals had three matches going deuce or 9 in the 7th, with dramatic finishes in each. Hong Kong almost stole the show, and ended up with two of the semifinalists, with China getting the other two - barely.

The BIG upset was China's Wang Nan, #1 in the world continuously since January of 1999 and generally considered the surest thing in women's table tennis, losing. Hong Kong's Lin Ling (world #8 and formerly on the Chinese national team) went at it with her, pulling off the upset at 7,-8,-5,6,6,-3,9. The two play similar styles, except that Lin Ling plays a bit more off the table and loops more, and is right-handed. Wang is left-handed, and generally plays more aggressive. In this match, the rallies were a mixture of vicious backhand-backhand exchanges and off-table looping and counterlooping.

Defending U.S. Open Women's Singles Champion Niu Jianfeng of China (world #4) almost followed in Wang's footsteps. She played teammate Guo Yan (world #14), and the two played to 9-all in the 7th. Two net-dribblers in a row (!), and Niu had advanced, to the consternation of her be-netted foe. 

In still another dramatic match, China's Zhang Yining (world #3) barely pulled it out against Hong Kong's Zhang Rui (world #80!), a penhold looper with a nice backhand jab block. Many rallies turned into backhand-backhand battles, with Yining backhand spinning off the bounce to Rui's aggressive penhold blocks, with Yining having the edge there. Yining's forehand seemed to be erratic this match, while Rui's forehand was hitting. Yining led 10-9 in the seventh, but Rui deuced it with a net ball that Yining barely missed looping. But Yining blocked a winner to Rui's forehand to get the ad, 11-10. Rui then took control, blocking Yining out of position with a series of aggressive side-to-side jab blocks - but blocks off, and Zhang Yining pulls it out, -9,7,-9,9,8,-4,10. If Rui had won, it would have been three Hong Kong players in the semifinals.

After these three matches, Hong Kong's Lau Sui Fei's (world #30, and like Lin Ling, a former member of the Chinese national team) upset win over Korea's Ryu Ji Hye (world #5) seemed almost anticlimatic, -11,5,8,10,8. Lau had already beaten China's Li Jia (world #15), and combined with this win, she'll join teammate Lin Ling in the top ten in the world. 

The two semifinals will be battles of teammates, as the two Chinese (Zhang Yining and Niu Jianfeng) play each other in one semifinal, and the two Hong Kong players (Lin Ling and Lau Sui Fei) in the other semifinal. 

For complete results, see the women's singles draw.

Men

All four quarterfinal men's matches were basically displays of overwhelming power and ability by the winner, ending with quick 4-0 or 4-1 wins.

China's Qin Zhijian (world #54, but that ranking is obviously way too low), after defeating teammate Wang Liqin (world #1) earlier, easily took out another top teammate, this time pips-out penholder Liu Guoliang, 6,12,9,8. Both players had great difficulty with the other's serves, but Liu had far more trouble than Qin, missing over and over. This was a rather strange turn of events, as usually it is Liu's opponents that have great difficulty with his serves - such as in Liu's previous match, where Germany's Torben Wosik had so many problems with them.

Austria's Werner Schlager (world #7) similarly had little trouble with Germany's Thomas Keinath (world #94), winning at 7,7,7,6. The match was a counterlooping duel, but Schlager's backhand loop was just too powerful. 

Kong Linghui advances to the semifinals. Photo by Diego Schaaf, copyright 2002

Probably the most anticipated match was China's Kong Linghui (world #5, former world men's singles champion) against up-and-coming Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei (world #17). It was probably the best of the four men's quarterfinals matches, with both players topspinning strongly from both wings, but Kong's versatility was just too much - he can win points too many ways. Chuan pulled out the first game 12-10, but lost the second. In the third, at 5-5, Kong went on a run to win 11-6. Match to Kong, -10,8,6,8,3. 

Sweden's Fredrik Hakansson (world #33, but defeater of Liu Guozheng the previous round) hoped to make it two top Chinese in a row, against Ma Lin (world #2). But penhold looper Ma simply generates too much raw power in his shots, and won most of the counterlooping rallies, as well as any other rally that he got his forehand on. Ma won the first two at 8 & 4, and led 10-6 in the third when Hakansson made a move, scoring four in a row. Ma led 11-10, and ripped a powerful forehand - but Hakansson made a miracle forehand block winner to the open court, 11-11. Ma ripped another "winner," and this time Hakansson blocked a backhand clean winner! Hakansson went on to win this game, 14-12. However, the rest of the way was all Ma as he won the match, 8,4,-12,7,5. Leading 10-7 in the fourth, Ma called a time-out - demonstrating the different use of the timeouts. While most of the rest of the world calls timeouts when they are in trouble, most Chinese players call timeouts when they are about to win a game, to make sure they don't let up. Another interesting note is that Ma didn't seem to be hiding his serves, although you could see that he was pushing it to the limit, with contact just visible to the opponent. I watched from Hakansson's viewpoint to verify this - Ma seemed to be serving a lot of short no-spin and sidespin/backspins with a very fast motion, and Hakansson didn't seem able to make effective returns. Hakansson also wasn't using hidden serves, but Ma had less trouble with his serves. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Ma plays Kong. 

One interesting point: leading 10-8 in the third - the game he would end up losing - Ma mishit his serve, and hit the ball all the way over the table into Hakansson. You could just see the crowd recognizing themselves in that miss-hit.)

The quarterfinal matches are Qin Zhijian (CHN) versus Werner Schlager (AUT), and Kong Linghui (CHN) versus Ma Lin (CHN). 

For complete results see the men's singles draw. 

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