On 16 January, the regular season of the WTT Muscat Table Tennis Tournament once again saw the 19-year-old Chinese table tennis team team’s new National Championships Men’s Singles champion Huang Youzheng take to the court to challenge Harimoto Tomokazu, the top-seeded (and world No. 3) and Japan’s National Championships Men’s Singles champion, who lost 1-3 after missing several set points, and thus ended up in the last eight of the tournament.
Both the Chinese table tennis team and the Japanese team have only one men’s singles player left to advance to the semi-finals, namely Chen Yuanyu (3-0 win over India’s Manashe) and Harimoto Tomokazu, but they are in different halves of the draw and will not meet for the time being – see below for more details on the match.
Match Watch
Huang Youzheng and Harimoto Tomokazu are the men’s singles national champions of China and Japan respectively, but although the former topped the rankings last year, the gold content of the tournament was reduced due to the absence of all the Chinese table tennis team’s mainstays at the time, coupled with the fact that Huang Youzheng’s performance in recent years in foreign matches has not been ideal, and as a result, many fans believe that there is a significant gap between his strength and many of his predecessors who have been national champions.
On the other hand, although the overall level of Japanese men’s bingo is not as good as China’s, Harimoto Tomokazu himself has a relatively strong international tournament results to support, so it is still regarded as the top of today’s bingo world, this tournament will face a serious test of the young Huang Youzheng.
Sanweisport-Professional Table Tennis Equipment Provider
Only 11.9 USD
- Taiji 210 bat is an allround premade high quality table tennis bat for the starters, it’s the best seller and the most popular bat of the Taiji Bat series.
- The blade is made by 7 layers of decent pure wood, coated by two sides of ITTF approved rubber makes it useable for competition, with a comfortable flared handle.
- It saves your time for selecting from thousands of combinations and just gives you the right one with great quality/price ratio.
- 2-Stars Table Tennis Bat is perfect for amateur gamers !
If you are interested in table tennis equipment, you can visit our Sanweisport homepage to select the most professional table tennis equipment. We will provide you with the best table tennis blades, rubbers, bat, and other products!
At the beginning of the match, Huang Youzheng took the lead in using his left-handed line to break through his opponent’s forehand to score from a large angle, then was suppressed by Harimoto Tomokazu’s close-to-table speed, but soon used his backhand to twist and pull his backhand to level up again, and the match was in a stalemate, and in the latter part of the match, Huang Youzheng missed three set points while he was leading at 10-8, 11-10, and finally lost the first set at 11-13.
In the second set, Harimoto Tomokazu also started to strengthen his attack on Huang Youzheng’s forehand gap, and at the same time, he used his strong backhand to twist and pull to take the first initiative. The Chinese table tennis team had a fluctuation of mentality after missing the opportunity of the first set, but he quickly adjusted his condition to achieve a rebound, and then he again led by 10-8 to get two set points, and this time, he didn’t miss the opportunity, and he quickly took the ball to level the big score at 11-8.
Harimoto Tomokazu quickly suppressed the Chinese table tennis team in the third set, scoring 6 points in a row to form an advantage. Huang Youzheng, although tenacious to catch up, but after all, the first half is too far behind, and soon fell behind 4-10 by the other side of the 6 set points, and then scored 4 points in a row to force the Japanese team to call a timeout to make adjustments. After returning to the court, Huang Youzheng’s momentum of chasing points was interrupted, and then 8-11 defeat was forced into a desperate situation.
Harimoto Tomokazu continued his dominance in the fourth set, with Huang Youzheng trailing 1-4 in the opening game and using his timeout, then scoring consecutive points to overtake the match, while taking a 10-7 lead with three set points. Harimoto Tomokazu started to fight back again, then scored 3 points in a row to tie the match at 10-10, and Huang Youzheng was unable to reverse the defeat, ending the match at 11-13, and was eliminated by a score of 1-3, unable to qualify for the quarter-finals of the men’s singles.
Objectively speaking, the current Huang Youzheng no matter technology or experience is really weaker than Harimoto Tomokazu, the result of this battle is not surprising to fans, after all, young people also need to summarise and grow up in the frustration, and look forward to his performance in the next game will be even more impressive!
