Table Tennis: Joola Hungarian Open 2010- Top Two Seeds Reaching the Final of Men’s Singles Event
In Joola 2010 Hungarian Open in Budaors, two semi-finals of the Men’s Singles event were played on Sunday October 17, 2010. The top two seeds got through their semi-final encounters successfully. Jun Mizutani of Japan seeded no.1 made a five games victory
over Czech Republic’s Dmitrij Prokopov. Kenta Matsudaira was defeated by no.2 seed, Chuang Chih-Yuan, the same score line was same as that of former match.
Jun Mizutani succeeded 11-8, 6-11, 11-6, 14-12, 11-8, while Chuang Chih-Yuan made 11-4, 0-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-5.
Chuang Chih-Yuan has made it into the final of a Men’s Singles event for the first time since 2006 when he ended up in runners up at the Volkswagen Open Singapore. Moreover, it was 13th time that Chuang Chih-Yuan had played in a Men’s Singles
event semi-final at an international tournament on the ITTF Pro Tour and this time it was his 9th successful match out of those 13. It is an appreciable performance and conversion rate by him and he has always come up with adorable games.
Jun Mizutani’s performance throughout his career is not so dissimilar from that of Chuang Chih-Yuan. Mizutani is eight years younger than Chuang Chih-Yuan and this time he made his fifth appearance in semi-final on ITTF Pro Tour. He made his mark for the
third time at such an early stage of his career. He has always delighted the crowd by giving commendable performance in every tournament.
Both of the top two seeds have an experience of playing and competing in the final match of ITTF Pro Tour Tournament Men’s Singles event. This experience truly gave them an advantage in overcoming their opponents in these semi-final matches. On the other
hand, playing the semi-finals was like exploring a new field for both Dmitrij Prokopcov and Kenta Matsudaira.
Dmitrij Prokopcov is seeded no.12. Previously he showed his best by appearing in quarter final of 2009 Belarus Open while for 23rd seed, Kenta Matsudaira, his best was reaching the third round at Japan Opens and Harmony China 2009.
Dmitrij Prokopcov met Jun Mizutani for the very first time in the world ranking event. While for Chuang Chih-Yuan and Kenta Matsudaira, history has favoured the man from Chinese Taipei.
The later pair had faced each other in the major world ranking events two times before. On both the occasions, Chuang Chih-Yuan had overpowered his opponent. In October, 2008, he defeated Kenta Matsudaira by four splendid games in semi-final of Men’s team
event in Austrian Open. Earlier in the same year, he had overcome Kenta Matsudaira by a seven game distance fight in the second round of Men’s Team event of Harmony China Open in Suzhou.
Chuang Chih-Yuan while complimenting his opponent said, “Kenta Matsudaira has difficult services. The important point was I won the rallies.” Harmony in China and for Chuang Chih-Yuan, it was harmony again in his victories but this time in Budaors.
In Women’s Singles event at the same open, Romania’s Elizabeta Samara and Tie Yana of Hong Kong reserved their places in the final. Both showed spectacular performances in semi-final on Sunday morning. Samara, seeded no.12 beat Viktoria Pavlovich of Belarus
who is the recently crowned European champion. Keeping in view the previous seeding and history, the win over this European player was a surprise result. Two of them had met seven times on various occasions with the result being in favour of Viktoria Pavlovvich.
On the other hand, Tie Yana, the no.5 seed succeeded against Lau Sui Fei in six games duel. Victory for Tie Yana was to be expected from the very beginning of the tournament. She was in good form and well aware of her opponent's style of playing.
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