20-year-old Fan Defends Men’s Singles Title at Asian Table Tennis Championships

China’s FAN Zhendong has successfully defended his Men’s Singles title against surprise finalist JEONG Sangeun from Korea Republic at the Seamaster 2017 ITTF-Asian Championships that concluded today, 16 April 2017, in Wuxi, China.

This is also the 20-year-old’s third Gold medal from the 2017 Asian Championships, having claimed the Men’s Team title on 12 April, and the Men’s Doubles crown with his teammate LIN Gaoyuan just yesterday.

Earlier in the tournament, JEONG challenged reigning World and Olympic Champion MA Long’s dominance in the international table tennis scene, shocking the World number one out of the Asian Championships in the third round of the Men’s Singles event.

JEONG also accounted for Rio 2016 Olympic Team Silver medalist Koki NIWA (JPN) in the semifinals, having to come back from 0-2 games down and saving four match points to win 3-2 (6-11, 9-11, 11-5, 11-7, 13-11) and make his entry into the final.

In the final showdown, JEONG was unable to pull off another hat trick against the 20-year-old FAN, losing in three straight games (5-11, 5-11, 8-11).

“It’s been a tiring but happy trip here for the Asian Championships. I’ve never thought if I will win or lose in the matches, or who my opponent will be, I was just trying to play each and every match to my best,” shared JEONG.

Upon his victory, FAN stated “I didn’t expect that I would win 3-0 in the final, I came into the match mentally prepared for any difficulty, and came with the mindset to fight for every point in the match.”

Commenting on JEONG’s dream run at the Asian Championships, FAN added “JEONG has had a good tournament in both the team & singles event, defeating my teammate MA Long, and earlier today, coming back three straight games to beat Koki NIWA.”

In the Women’s Doubles final, the gold medal was contested between World Champions CHEN Meng & ZHU Yuling against their younger compatriots CHEN Ke & WANG Manyu. With their experience in major international tournaments, CHEN & ZHU eventually prevailed 3-1 (11-8, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9) to win the title.

“We are very happy to win this title here,” shared ZHU after the victory. “CHEN Meng and I will be partnering for the Women’s Doubles event for the World Championships next month too, and we will aim for the Gold in Dusseldorf as well.”

With the conclusion of the Seamaster 2017 ITTF-Asian Championships, Asia’s top players will head towards Incheon, Korea with the rest of the world’s top stars for the Seamaster 2017 ITTF World Tour Korean Open.

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