China's Second-tier Team Wins Two Titles at WTT Doha, Defeating Japan's Tomokazu Harimoto in Men's Doubles Final
Beijing time January 13 news, the 2025 WTT Star Challenge Doha station has come to an end. The second-line lineup of the Chinese team won two championships, while the main lineup of the Japanese team won three championships. In the men's doubles final, Xiang Peng/Xu Yingbin defeated the Japanese pair of Tomokazu Harimoto/Matsuhashi Kakeru 3-2 to win the championship. In the women's singles, Japanese players such as Xu Si, Hina Hayata, and Hina Tomokazu were eliminated early.
The 2025 WTT Star Challenge Doha station is the first WTT event that the Chinese table tennis team participated in this year. For this competition, the Chinese team did not send main players such as Wang Chuqin, Sun Yingsha, and Wang Manyu to participate, but instead sent second-line players such as Qian Tianyi, He Zhuojia, Kuai Man, Chen Yi, Shi Xunyao, Zong Geman, Xiang Peng, and Chen Yuanyu to compete.
Compared with China's second-line lineup, the Japanese team sent their main lineup to participate in the competition, including Hina Hayata, Miu Hirano, and Sairi Ito, as well as siblings Tomokazu Harimoto and Hina Tomokazu.
The competition set up five events: men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles. Xiang Peng, Chen Yuanyu, and Huang Youzheng performed poorly in the men's singles and failed to advance to the quarter-finals.
China's team performed well in the other four events, with players advancing to the finals in all of them. The women's singles was Kuai Man, the men's doubles was Xiang Peng/Xu Yingbin, the women's doubles was He Zhuojia/Zong Geman, and the mixed doubles was Huang Youzheng/Shi Xunyao.
In the first women's doubles final, He Zhuojia/Zong Geman lost to Sairi Ito/Sakura Yokoi and missed the championship. In the subsequent men's doubles final, Xiang Peng/Xu Yingbin narrowly defeated the Japanese pair of Tomokazu Harimoto/Matsuhashi Kakeru 3-2 to win the championship.
In the women's singles final, young player Kuai Man easily defeated Japanese player Miyuu Kihara 4-0 to win the championship. In the last final, Tomokazu Harimoto defeated Danish player Groth 4-0. Overall, among the participating players of the national table tennis team, the men's singles strength is slightly weaker, and the other four events have advanced to the finals, winning two championships. Strong players like Hina Hayata and Hina Tomokazu performed poorly in the women's singles competition.