(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Armstrong Vas / The Peninsula
Doha: Playing in the qualification stage is always a tricky affair for players who have shared the top spot in the World Rankings and even more complicated if the opponent happens to be a rookie.
Chinese duo of Ding Ning and Liu Shiwen, the two ladies who for most part of the past three years and more have shared top spot, were stretched to the limit in the qualification tournament of the 2018 ITTF World Tour Platinum Qatar Open in Doha yesterday.
Both of them where vying for a place in the main draw, which begins today, in the end the collective experience of playing on the Tour came handy as the two made it past the initial group stage to the main draw.
Lack of international inactivity for the past six months, combined with a new method of assessing ranking, meant the Chinese duo have dropped down the list and were does forced to compete in the preliminary stages.
Both were tested. Ning needed five games to beat Japan's Miyuu Kihara 12-14, 11-8, 11-4, 11-9, 13-11, by a similar margin, Shiwen accounted for Singapore's Lin Ye 8-11, 11-6, 12-10, 14-12, 11-9. Away from the two Chinese players, one player who caught the eye turned out to be a 13-year-old Miyuu Kihara from Japan.
Against Ning she played more like a 23 year old; in the fourth game she led 9-7 before the reigning Olympic and World champion recovered, Miyuu Kihara electing for 'Time Out at 9-all. In the fifth game, she challenged again, Ding Ning forced to take a 'Time Out when ahead 10-9.
'I think it must be ten years since I've had to play in a qualification event; it is such a new situation for me. It's difficult to focus, difficult to motivate yourself. Miyuu played very well; it's good for the sport that we have such good young players emerging. She opened up well, good at playing the first attack. Today if I compare by level with last year at the World Championships, I would say it's just over 50 per cent, Ning said. Meanwhile, Banika Batra gave Indian supporters something to cheer about after Harmeet Desai, Soumyajit Ghosh, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Sanil Shetty suffered defeated in the men's qualification tournament.
Guided by national coach, Massimiliano Costantini, she beat Canada's Zhang Mo in a gruelling seven games contest 8-11, 11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 11-2, 13-15, 11-7. It was not the most exhilarating contest ever witnessed, it was one than needed patience and resolve; Zhang Mo uses short pimpled rubber on the forehand, for Batra it is long pimples on the backhand.
'Mouma Das, my team-mate uses exactly the same combination on her racket as Zhang Mo, so I am used to playing against that style of play, she said.
'The difference between the two players is that Mouma plays much faster from the forehand than Zhang Mo, against me today Zhang Mo played slowly and that caused me problems, she added. Choi Hyojoo overcame Japan's Yui Hamamoto in what was very much the recovery of the day, she fought back from a three games to nil deficit to emerge victorious 12-14, 8-11, 6-11, 11-6, 11-3, 11-7, 11-4). Similarly, Ng Wing Nam accounted for Chinese Taipei's Cheng Hsien-Tzu (11-8, 10-12, 11-9, 8-11, 7-11, 13-11, 11-5.
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