Single elimination commenced today for the 16 women and 32 men who remain in the China Open. In the women’s division it was an all Asian affair, with 8 women from China, 3 from Chinese Taipei, 2 Korean, 2 Filipinos and 1 from Japan. The two youngsters of the tournament had their runs ended today in the first round with Jiang Teng defeated by Xiao Tong Wang, 4-9, and Tianqi Shi beaten 6-9 by Liu Shasha. The two Korean players had been drawn against each other in the first round, and world champion Ga Young Kim defeated her compatriot Eunji Park in a close and intense battle, 9-7.
Another player many had thought would win, the young star from the Philippines, Chezka Centeno, lost narrowly 9-8 in her first match to the more experienced and world champion Han Yu. Han Yu and Liu Shasha have proved to be the strongest players in this tournament, and will now contest the final tomorrow. Apart from her first round win over Centeno, Han has been very comfortable with her wins, 9-2 against Chen, Ho-Yun and 9-4 over Wang, Xiao Tong. Liu also looked good with strong wins, defeating Shi, Tianqi 9-6, Zhang, Xiaotong 9-2 and Chen, Xue 9-5.
In the men’s division, Mika Immonen continued his strong start to the tournament, beating Chen Shuangyou 11-9 and then Darren Appleton 11-6 before falling victim in a nail-biter to Wu Kunlin 10-11. In form player Cheng Yushuan certainly stretched his nerves to the limit, winning 11-10 against Filipino Johann Chua, then 11-10 against Carlo Biado PHI, and then another Filipino, Jeffrey Ignacio 11-10. He is now in the semi-finals to play Wu Kunlin. World champion Albin Ouschan went out int he first round to world number 1, Ko Pin Yi 11-6. Ko and then eliminated Jeffrey De Luna 11-3 and looked beaten when he trailed 7-9 and 8-10 against Alex Pagulayan, but fought back strongly to eventually win 11-10 and has set up a semi-final match against Wu Jiaqing. Wu Jiaqing has looked good in all his matches, beating Denis Grabe 11-6, Zeng Zhaodong 11-3 and Wang Can 11-5.
