Muscat: The WTT Contender Muscat action started at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex on Sunday. The preliminary rounds took place in the opening day of the competitions.
For men’s singles, Saudi’s Abdulaziz Bu Shulaybi defeated Iran’s Navid Shamas 3-0 while Singapore's Poh Shao won the match against the Egyptian Omar Ali 3-0.
In the same round, France’s Antoine Hanchard managed to win Huang Yan-Cheng from Chinese Taipei 3-2 in a strong clash.
The first ever WTT contender in Muscat boasts of more than 200 paddlers representing 41 countries. The tournament features five categories including singles (men and women), doubles (men, women and mixed).
Jiri Martonko from Czech routed Belgian Eduard Ionescu 3-1 while Tugay from Turkey clinched a 3-0 win over Layan Neumann. Indian Sanil Shetty snatched a 3-1 win over Zihni Sahin.
In the women’s singles, Alaa Yehia from Egypt made her first win against Koh Kai from Singapore 3-0 while Turkey’s Simay Kulakcen got her campaign with a 3-2 win over Germany’s Franziska Schreiner. Spain’s Sofia-Xuan Zhang beat Hungary’s Mercedes Nagyvaradi 3-2 in a tight clash.
Mohamed Eldawlatly, WTT Event supervisor, thanked Oman’s efforts to host and organise this major TT event.
“This is the first ever WTT Contender in Muscat and I really thanks Oman Table Tennis Association for the hard work has been taken towards organising this major event. Oman had managed and hosted many senior events in 2019, 2020 and this new edition in 2022. They have enough experience to handle the top class events on the right manner. This event registered the participation of many top-class players including many players from China. There are many countries which select the events based on the quality, tough competition and the high level facilities provided by the hosting. All these facrots and facilities are provided perfectly by the hosts Oman,” he ended.
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