Miwa looked bad (poor anticipation and reaction) in her doubles with Kihara vs Odo/Yokoi so I wasn't totally surprised with her loss to Paranang.
SXY gets her revenge. SXY 3-0 Hirano. I had high hopes for Hirano, but got to hand it to the young CNT members, KM and SXY.
Good win for Nagasaki over Yangzi Liu who is a very crafty player that gives everyone trouble.
Yet another very good win for Yeh Yi-Tian of Taiwan 3-1 over Joo Cheonhui. Taiwan has found their successor to the still formidable CIC.
Taiwan has a bunch of teenagers lined up, that have beaten some of the senior players the past few months.
so very promising indeed
they just lack international experience and wins on the highest level
Kao is one of the examples, and with 1 win, it becomes many wins and growth in world ranking.
One of Taiwan's on going challenge for the next gen is to finish high enough in the domestic ranking system, for them to have more WTT game time.
Yeh is still lowly rated, and we might not see too much game time in the senior space for her this year...which is a shame, but domestic performance to give you ranks, that links to rights to priorities WTT is a democratic system.
PS, Yeh finish 1st round in the national trials, in November, so she has rights to join Star Contender Doha and Contender Oman as the national ranking tournament is in Dec was after the entry deadline for Doha and Oman, so she was on the front of the queue in the rights to play.
In Decembers ranking tournament, Yeh finished 14 out of 15 spots, and based on NER for 6, she has a long queue in front of her based on the rights to play internationals. This means, for Yeh to play, she needs up to 8 of the higher ranked players in front of her, to opt out of playing, for her to have the rights to play....
Lucky to see if she can have 3 or 4 feeders left in the year.
and I do hope to see more of her, including the 6 other teenagers in the Taiwan top 15 (youngest still 15 years old) in the senior circuit. Very promising future.