Ping-Pong.com - Your Number One Supplier-Best Prices Guaranteed

$110,000 U.S. Open 
& ITTF Pro Tour
Fort Lauderdale, Florida • July 3-7, 2002

 

Second Round Women's Singles - to Final 16

By Larry Hodges

The big upset of the round was Hong Kong's Zhang Rui (world #80) over China's Li Nan (world #7, the sixth seed), 12,-6,8,10,7. Of course, as someone said, "Hong Kong is part of China, so China won." That was probably little consolation to Li.

The rest of the top seeds won easily. World #1 and top seeded Wang Nan of China defeated Korea's Suk Eun Mi (world #48) at 7,1,7,11. Second seeded Zhang Yining (world #3), also of China, defeated Germany's Elke Wosik (world #61), 11,8,6,9. Third-seeded Niu Jianfeng (world #4), still another of the Chinese superstars, defeated Japan's Miyuki Nishii (world #103), 5,3,6,6. Fourth-seeded Ryu Ji Hye of Korea (world #5), the non-Chinese in the mix, defeated Japan's Keiko Okazaki (world #68), 6,5,7,-7,6. 

Two up-and-coming stars saw their quest come to an end. Japan's Ai Fukuhara ("Ai-chan") lost to Hong Kong's Lin Ling (world #8), 9,7,9,5. Canada's Petra Cada lost to China's Li Jia (world #15), 6,4,4,6.

Austria's Liu Jia advanced over Germany's Tanja Hain-Hoffmann. Photo by Diego Schaaf, copyright 2002

One of the strangest matches was Austria's Liu Jia (world #26) over Germany's Tanja Hain-Hoffmann (world #115). Liu lost one game at 1, while winning two games at 2 and 3 - and these three games were consecutive! Scores were -8,10,-1,2,3,9.

Lau Sui Fei of Hong Kong (world #30) was coasting to easy victory over Japan's Yuka Nishii (world #59), winning the first three games, including an 11-1 first-game thrashing. But Nishii staged a comeback, won the next three games, and almost won the seventh before losing, 1,9,6,-8,-4,-13,9.

In one of the longest matches, China's Cao Xingni (world #36) defeated Japan's Ai Fujinuma (world #55), -11,6,-10,11,6,13.

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

  Back to the 2002 U.S. Open Home Page