Feng leads favourites charge on opening day

Dubai - Chinese Taipei's Chiang and Chuang shock seeded opponents

Singaporean Feng Tianwei, the defending champion, had to bring out her best before subduing young Japanese Mima Ito 3-2 in a women's group qualifying match on the opening day of the Nakheel Table Tennis Asian Cup at the Dubai World Trade Centre's Zabeel Hall 1 on Thursday.
On a day when Chinese Taipei's Chiang Hung-Chieh and Chuang Chih-Yuan registered upset wins in their men's group openers, Feng, along with Chinese world men's number three Xu Xin and current world women's number one Liu Shiwen, impressed the spectators.
The matches are best of five set encounters with 11 as the winning point.
Feng and Mima were locked in a battle of contrasting styles and approaches on the centre table for nearly forty minutes in their five-set thriller. Mima played closer to the table and often relied heavily on her spin charged serves off high tosses and coupled this with some deadly smashes off the forehand.
Feng was more of an all-round player, showing why she is the current champ and looks set to challenge the might of the Chinese red brigade in this championships which ends on Saturday.
The finals are slotted for a 3.30pm start. The quarterfinals begin at 10am on Friday with the semis beginning at 4.30pm the same day. Entry to the tournament which has the best players in the world from the continent in action, is free.
India's Sharath Kamal Achanta, a former world top 25 player and currently in the first bracket of 75, after a fine first set win faltered in his returns on the forehand in an error-prone match against Korea's Lee Sangsu.
Kamal, who lost 2-3 to Lee has already made it to the Olympics this year after taking part in the 2004 and 2008 Games. He said: "I made too many unforced errors today and hopefully should be able to bounce back in my next group games. I am trying hard again to get into the world top 20 which I missed narrowly due to injury in the last world championships."
In Group 1, Chiang, the no.12 seed edged for Korea's Jung Youngsik, the no.6 seed 3-0, and in Group 3, Chuang overcame Singapore veteran, Gao Ning 3-2.
Southpaw Xu displaying fantastic retrieving and attacking abilities with his traditional penholder grip withstood the blistering counter attacks by Korea's Jung Youngsik to register a 3-1 victory.
Liu worked out a quick 3-0 scoreline against another talented Japanese, Miu Hirano, to sit pretty in her qualifying pool.
Chiang said: "Today I made adjustments to my strategies against him and handled each point more carefully. More importantly, my mindset during the match was the key; I wasn't thinking much about the scores, just trying to play to my best for each point."
In the morning session, another Chinese superstar, Zhang Jike, the number 7 seed, beat Lee 3-0 and Hong Kong's Wong Chun Ting outplayed Kamal 3-0.
Also opening their accounts with wins in the morning were, Japan's Jun Mizutani, the no.4 seed, who beat Hong Kong debutant Ho Kwan Kit, the no.10 seed 3-1; Liu who thumped Hong Kong's Tie Yana 3-0; and Japan's Miu Hirano, the no.6 seed, who accounted for Korea's Lee Zion with a 3-0 victory.
China's Li Xiaoxia, the no.2 seed, accounted for Singapore's Yu Mengyu, the no.8 3-1. Feng was too strong for Chinese Taipei's Chen Szu-Yu before registering a 3-1 win in her morning opener.
In the Intercontinental Group men's competition Iran's Nima Alamian accounted for Abdulla Albalooshi of the UAE 3-0 and India's Soumyajit Ghosh proved too strong for Singapore's Clarence Chew before coming out with 3-1 win. India's Manika beat Majd Alblooshi of the UAE 3-0 while Thailand's Suthasini Sawettabut downed Qatar's Noora Al Abri 3-0 in the Intercontinental Group's women's competition.
moni@khaleejtimes.com