Dang Qiu from Düsseldorf reached the quarterfinals at the meeting of the 16 best table tennis players of last year in Doha (Qatar) on Wednesday. At the start he defeated the Chinese U19 world champion Lin Shidong.
Dang Qiu started well against the 18-year-old world number nine and won the first set 11:9. He also kept the pressure high in the second half. Until the score was 8:8, it was a duel at eye level in which Qiu was never able to gain more than a two-point lead. But the Düsseldorfer made the decisive final spurt with three points in a row – to 11:8.
Shidong gains the upper hand after a timeout
In the third set, the German took a 4:3 lead after being 1:3 behind before coach Shidong called a timeout. The Chinese then scored four points in a row. What was particularly annoying from Qiu’s point of view was the point at 4:7, when he had pushed his opponent onto the defensive, but didn’t hit Shidong’s high emergency shot correctly and ultimately lost the set 7:11.
The Chinese was on the rise and benefited at the beginning of round four from Qiu thwarting the edge of the net twice, as his forehand shots ended up going out of bounds. His 18-year-old opponent found the better answers even from defensive positions far behind the plate and dominated the set 11:2.
Qiu finds her way back into the game with six points in a row
In the deciding set, Qiu was now about finding his way back into the game. He succeeded impressively. After losing the first point, he pulled away to 6:1 and 7:2 before the Chinese whiz kid from last season scored four points in a row again.
At the point to make it 8:6, Qiu had a bit of luck when a shot from Shidong flew out of bounds from the edge of the net, but after that the 27-year-old German played into his greater routine. With a direct point win after Shidong’s serve to make it 10:8, the German set the course for victory and celebrated his first victory in the finals with 11:8.
In addition to Qiu, Dimitrij Ovtcharov will be competing in Doha for the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) and will fight for the quarter-finals on Wednesday against the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto. He will also compete in doubles together with Patrick Franziska, where they will face the Chinese duo Lin Gaoyuan/Lin Shidong on Thursday for a place in the semi-finals
