by Simon Daish
Gu Yuting met face-to-face with third seed Kasumi Ishikawa at the quarter-finals stage of the competition with the Chinese star coming out on top in a tight six games encounter against her Japanese counterpart (6-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-6, 6-11, 11-4).
The fifth seed was left disappointed in the opening game, missing out on an edge decision at 5-7 down with Kasumi Ishikawa going on to claim an early lead.
However, Gu Yuting didn’t let the decision dwell on her conscience, claiming three games on the bounce to steal the advantage. Kasumi Ishikawa managed to cut the games deficit to one with a fine showing in game five, but it was not to be for the Japanese competitor with Gu Yuting sealing the win with a calm display in the sixth game to earn a semi-finals spot on her ITTF World Tour Grand Finals debut.
“This is my first World Tour Grand Finals appearance so I’m really happy to be able to make the semi-finals this time. I have no worries for the next few matches already, so I can just play my game and do my best.” Gu Yuting.
Awaiting Gu Yuting in the last four is a fixture against Chen Meng after the top seed pulled off a comfortable victory over Feng Tianwei in her quarter-finals tie.
Proving relatively untroubled throughout the course of the match Chen Meng impressively saw off the eighth seed in straight games (11-4, 11-8, 11-6, 11-3) to move to within one win from the final.
Women’s Singles quarter-finals action resumes on Saturday 16th December at 13.00pm (local time).
