The second women’s singles semi-final of the WTT Singapore Grand Slam came to a close on 8 February, with the two Chinese table tennis team mainstays battling it out in 7 games. Sun Yingsha narrowly beat Wang Yidi 4-3 to advance, winning the deciding game by only 2 points, and will then fight for the title with her other teammate Kuai Man (who won the semi-final 4-2 against Chen Xingtong) in the final, see below for more details on the battle.
Sun Yingsha was born in 2000 and is currently ranked No. 1 in the world, while Wang Yidi was born in 1997 and is currently ranked No. 3 in the world. After Wang Manyu’s defeat against Kuai Man, Sun Yingsha and Wang Yidi became the two highest-ranked athletes among the top eight women’s singles players in this tournament.
In terms of individual singles results and rankings, only one step away from the Grand Slam Sun Yingsha (World Tournament, World Cup singles champion, Olympic singles runner-up) is obviously stronger than Wang Yidi; and in the past international match records, Sun Yingsha against Wang Yidi achieved 9 wins and 4 defeats, and the last 4 encounters were all taken, so it is generally believed that the battle is still Sun Yingsha has a better chance of winning.
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After the match started, Sun Yingsha took the lead and scored 6 points in a row in the first set to suppress her teammates, then Wang Yidi also accelerated her attack to fight against Sun Yingsha. Both athletes are top players in the ping pong world, so the quality of the boards is very high, and the slightest unloading of force will be pulled through the defence by the other side, and in the end, it is still Sun Yingsha’s play that is more stable and she easily won the first place with 11-2.
In the second set, Sun Yingsha opened up a gap in the opening game and soon took an 8-1 lead. Although she made a few mistakes in the second set, she eventually took another 11-5 win to extend her advantage over Wang Yidi.
The situation changed in the third set, this time Wang Yidi started 7-1 lead over her teammates, through the change of serve to disrupt the rhythm of Sun Yingsha, but then also by the impact of the other side, both began to strengthen the threat of forehand attack, Sun Yingsha in the case of backwardness to save two set points, Wang Yidi called a timeout to adjust, and then although it was still being pursued to 10 level, but ultimately to 12-10 to win a close return! The fourth set was very intense.
The fourth set was very intense, both sides launched a very exciting attack, Sun Yingsha once behind to 9 level, but Wang Yidi ultimately by virtue of the strong backhand attack near the table 11-9 to take the two sides and thus tied the score.
In the fifth game, Sun revitalised her game and built up her advantage through more compact attacks on both sides of the court, gradually widening the gap after the middle game, eventually winning 11-6 to take the lead over Wang Yidi again, and at the same time pushing her teammate to the brink of extinction.
In the sixth game, Wang Yidi went back to the drawing board and broke through Sun Yingsha’s forehand gap by changing lines, then repeated the same trick but failed to work. Faced with the disadvantage of the score, Wang Yidi pressed forward and succeeded in levelling the score and reversing Sun Yingsha’s position, and finally took the match by two points, 11-9, which dragged the match into a decisive set.
In the seventh game, the two sides are still playing hard to distinguish, Sun Yingsha once 10-8 lead missed two match points, but finally ended the battle with 12-10, and thus narrowly won 4-3 to advance, and 21-year-old Chinese table tennis team will start the women’s singles duel with Kuai Man, which is worth everyone’s attention.
