by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

Defeat for Sun Yingsha but nevertheless playing in only the third ITTF World Tour tournament of her career, she owns a quite remarkable record. In Japan she won, in China she was the runner up, now in Austria she reached the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, for Wang Manyu, it is a third Women’s Singles final of the year, having reached the title deciding contest in Qatar and Australia when colleague Chen Meng halted aspirations.

Furthermore, for Wang Manyu there was an air of revenge, in Japan, at the semi-final stage she was beaten by Sun Yingsha in four straight games.

“I think I played well overall, four-two, the same as my last match. Today, I had good control of the match, including a good execution of my strategies and tactics. Today, it was mainly preparing my tactics based on her strengths in order to have better control of the match and prevent her having too many high quality shots that would give me pressure. So my strategy was more focused on controlling the match.” Wang Manyu

Success for Wang Manyu contrary to their previous encounter; for Gu Yuting it was slightly different.

She lost to Gu Yuting in the Junior Girls’ Singles final at the Nikon 2012 Hong Kong Junior and Cadet Open but later in the same year emerged successful when they met at the semi-final stage of the Volkswagen 2012 World Junior Championships in the Indian city of Hyderabad.

“I’m happy with my performance in the match, because it was way tougher than what I expected. As we are from the same team, we are familiar with each other. Also there were many points that went beyond my imagination, so it was a tough fight; when I was leading in the sixth game, I wanted to win, so I played more conservatively and that resulted in 10-10 game. Tomorrow I think I have to be more bold in my game.”

The final will be played on the afternoon of Sunday 24th September.