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Winner of the Men’s Singles title at the Commonwealth Games in the Australian city of Melbourne in 2006; the host nation’s Sharath Kamal Achanta set the GAC Group 28th Asian Cup 2015 alive in the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on the morning of Friday 13th March.
Currently listed at no.49 on the Men’s World Rankings, to the delight of the home crowd, he beat Chinese Taipei’s Chuang Chih-Yuan, listed at no.8 in the global order, to make the perfect start to his campaign.
Sharath Kamal Achanta won in four games (11-6, 7-11, 11-5, 11-3) to cause the biggest upset to date in the prestigious three day tournament.
“I’ve lost to Chuang Chih-Yuan many times in the past but recently I have done much better against him”, reflected Sharath Kamal Achanta. “Last year at the Asian Cup, in the matches for fifth to eighth place, I beat him; also in our most recent meeting in the German Bundesliga I only lost three-two.”
In fact the duel at the 2014 Asian Cup in the Chinese city of Wuhan was their one and only meeting in World ranking events.
“Previously, he has always proved too fast for me but today I was playing on home ground; for him it was very different”, added Sharath Kamal Achanta, who was very much back to form, after a rather disappointing February on the GAC Group 2015 ITTF World Tour.
Notably, in Kuwait and Qatar he failed to progress to the main draw, departing in the qualification stage on both occasions.
“I’d played many matches before Kuwait and Qatar, European Champions League and German Bundesliga; physically I was not in good shape before those tournaments”, continued Sharath Kamal Achanta. “After Qatar I spent one week in Düsseldorf and then one week in Denmark.”
The decision reaped dividends in Jaipur.
I went to Denmark because there are several Asian players there and I wanted to practise against their style of play”, continued Sharath Kamal Achanta. “They play much faster than the Europeans and today I was able to cope with the speed of Chuang Chih-Yuan and use my power.”
Success for Sharath Kamal Achanta in what could well be considered the toughest group of all; in the corresponding contest, China’s Fan Zhendong, the second seed accounted for Korea’s Joo Saehyuk in a full distance five games encounter (9-11, 11-2, 11-1, 9-11, 11-7).
“The Asian Cup is very different from other tournaments, from the very start you have to face high level players”, said Fan Zhendong. “I think Joo Saehyuk and myself are of a similar level; today was very important that I put into practise everything that I have done in training.
A close call for Fan Zhendong; there was also a close call for Japan’s Koki Niwa; he needed the full five games to beat Hong Kong’s Jiang Tianyi (11-5, 3-11, 13-11, 6-11, 11-6).
Success for Koki Niwa in five games; in the same group it was somewhat more comfortable for China’s Xu Xin, the top seed. He beat Korea’s Kim Minseok in three straight games (11-7, 11-7, 11-5).
It was an impressive performance from Xu Xin as it was from Jun Mizutani, the third seed and like Koki Niwa from Japan. He beat Singapore’s Gao Ning in three straight games (11-6, 11-4, 11-8).
Likewise, in the same group, Jiang Tianyi’s colleague, Tang Peng was in no mood for charity. He accounted for the host nation’s Soumyajit Ghosh in three straight games (11-7, 11-4, 11-4).
Comprehensive wins; it was the same in the two contests the signalled the start of the Regional Group.
Iran’s Noshad Alamiyan beat Yemen’s Omar Ali in three straight games (11-7, 11-6, 11-4); in a similar vein Singapore’s Yang Zi overcame India’s Sathiyan Gnanasekaran without the loss of a single game (11-6, 11-8, 11-4).
Article by: Ian Marshall
Photo: TTFI
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