Ma Long and Guo Yan take top honours at GAC Motors Asia Cup 2011 – Table Tennis Update
Ma Long and Guo Yan, the two players ranked at the second position according to the ITTF World ranking proved to be the best at the Motors Asia Cup 2011 as they won the Men’s and Women’s Singles titles of the event held on September 30, 2011.
Both Yang and Long are ranked at Number 2 in the ITTF International ranking as of September 2011. It was the third time for Ma Long and second for Guo Yan to have won the final of the Asia Cup.
Guo Yan defeated World Number 16 Jiang Huajun in a match that prolonged for six sets before the Chinese player dominated in front of the home crowd. Yan lost the first set 3-11 but fought back as she won the second and the third set 11-5 and 11-9. Jiang
succeeded in the fourth set 9-11 before she was cleaned away by Yan in the next two sets as she won 12-10 and 11-7.
Huajun was playing brilliantly during the opening game and scored a lot of points through her strong back hand strokes. Yan was quick to react as she changed her game plan and returned the ball close to Jiang’s playing elbow which confused her to choose
between forehand and backhand.
Singapore again had to face defeat by the hands of Guo Yue during the match for the third position in Women’s Singles as she defeated Tie Yana. Tie was forced to abandon the match against Yue as she was suffering from an injury.
In the final of Men’s Singles, Ma Long had a similar encounter with his compatriot Xu Xin who is currently ranked at the ninth position. He started slow by losing the first set 9-11 but was totally unstoppable as he cruised towards victory winning the next
three sets by 11-5, 11-7 and 11-6. A ray of hope appeared for Xin in the fifth set as he defeated Long 12-14 but Ma Long was never ready to surrender as he dominated the sixth set 11-6.
World Number 27 Kaii Yoshida of Japan secured the bronze medal as a result of a four set straight victory over the Number 16th ranked player at the ITTF ranking, Singapore’s Gao Ning. He was playing the match after he had a close encounter with
Ma Long a day earlier but could not find his feet against the Japanese player as he lost the game by: 11-8, 11-7, 11-9 and 11-3.
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