DOHA (Qatar): Dimitrij Ovtcharov and Mima Ito won the men’s and women’s singles titles at the inaugural World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender on Saturday.
The Ukraine-born Ovtcharov defeated world No. 7 Lin Yun-Ju of Chiense Tapei 4-1 (11-7, 14-12, 12-10, 6-11, 11-6) in the final.
In the women’s singles, Ito got the better of compatriot Hina Hayata 4-2 (11-9, 11-8, 6-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-6).
The singles winners in both the men’s and women’s section got a winner purse of $15,00.
The winners in the singles events also collected 400 ranking points while the finalist had 280 points in their kitty.
In mixed doubles, Lin teamed up with Cheng I-ching to defeat Emmanuel Lebesson and Yuan Jianan of France in the final.
The world No. 4 pair, who had progressed to the final without dropping a game in the quarterfinal and semifinals, faced tough competition from the world No. 15 French pair as the final was stretched into five games.
The Chinese Taipei pair eventually prevailed 4-1 (11-7, 11-13, 11-6, 16-18, 11-4).
In the men’s doubles, Korean pair of Cho Daeseong and Lee Sangsu defeated Argentinians Alto Gaston and Cifuentes Horacio 3-2 in a keenly contested final while Japan’s Miu Hirano and Kasumi Ishikawa defeated Cheng Hsien-tzu and Chen Szu-yu of Chinese Tapei 3-0 (6-11, 8-11, 6-11) took the honour in women’s category.
The second tier of the WTT Middle East Hub – WTT Star Contender — got underway today with the qualifiers.
Under the new branding, most of the matches will be played in a best of five format, while the usual best of seven format will be retained only for the semifinals and finals of the men’s and women’s singles.
