The Chinese young paddler, Chen Yuanyu, beat World No 3 and top seeded player in the tournament, Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto 4-2 to clinch the men’s singles title at WTT Contender Muscat 2025 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex on Friday night.
The World No 54 surprised all by his outstanding show to overcome the Japanese heavyweight in the final. Despite Harimoto, champion of WTT Star Contender in Doha recently, taking the first set 11-8, Chen Yuanyu bounced back strongly in the second and third sets. He registered 11-7 wins in both sets before Harimoto pulled one back in the fourth set 11-3. In the last two concluding sets, Chen made an electrifying display to take it 11-4 and 12-10. Chen prevailed at 4-2 (11-8, 7-11, 7-11, 11-4, 12-10).
Speaking after the victory, Chen Yuanyu said:"I played this game away from the pressure and managed to end it on a successful note by securing a new title. It was a tough and difficult match and I took the advantage of the weakness areas of the opponent to complete the match on victory result."
China's Kuai Man could not capitalise her last week's triumph at WTT Star Contender in Doha as she suffered a 4-0 (6-11, 9-11, 8-11, 4-11) defeat against her teammate Shi Xunyao, who clinched the women’s singles title. Xunyao produced a ruthless display in the final as she put four sets past Kuai without any reply from the opponent.
Harimoto, however, left Muscat with the title of men’s doubles with his teammate Sora Matsushima following their resounding success over Chang Yu-An and Hung Jing-Kai from Chinese Taipei by 3-0 (15-13, 11-5, 11-6).
On the other hand, Satsuki Odo and Sakura Yokoi of Japan made it back-to-back title wins to start the season and build on their Doha success with a 3-1 win over Zhu Chengzhu and Ng Wing Lam from Hong Kong in the women’s doubles final (10-12, 11-4, 11-9, 11-4).
Earlier on Thursday, the Spanish pair of Maria Xiao and Alvaro Robles beat Chinese duo of Shi Xunyao and Huang Youzheng 3-1 (6-11, 12-14, 12-10,17-19) to snatch the mixed doubles title.
Four out of five titles at stake of the $85,000 tournament were awarded on the concluding day of the biggest table tennis event in Oman. The seven days action of WTT Contender Muscat 2025 featured participation of more than 200 participants representing more than 35 countries from across the world including Australia, Maldives, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Nigeria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Slovakia, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Türkiye, the United States, Wales, Singapore and the hosts Sultanate of Oman.
Star Contender
Abdullah Mohammed Bamakhalif, Chairman of Oman Table Tennis Association (OTTA), informed that the OTTA in collaboration with the World Table Tennis (WTT) is examining the prospects of hosting the WTT Star Contender in the near future.
"We have managed to host successfully several WTT Contender in Muscat in the recent years. The new proposal which is to host major events is currently under evaluation with several government and private sectors. This event will feature a large number of top-ranked players worldwide. Also, these tournaments require high technical, logistical and organisational standards and we will work with our partners to meet these requirements before making a final decision on hosting these events in the near future," he said.
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