Chinese stars Xin Xu and Yingsha Sun both won two golds medals at the German Open in Bremen, but the star of the show was former world no. 1, Zhendong Fan.
The two-time Worlds Singles medalist hadn’t had a win on the ITTF World Tour for 343 days when he started the men’s Singles final against Xu – ranked no. 1, to no. 2 for Fan – but the outcome was clear. Fan won by four sets to one and took his first title since the 2018 Swedish Open.
“This is an enormously important victory for me. I am overjoyed to have won against Xu Xin,” said Fan afterwards. “Since we know each other so well it’s really hard for me to surprise him with anything. I never let up, always put pressure on him until the last rally. I had a lot of fun here, especially with this great crowd.” The win was the 12th career Singles title for Fan in ITTF World Tour play.
The silver for Xu was his third medal of the event, after winning the men’s Doubles with Jingkun Liang and the Mixed Doubles with Sun. Ranked no. 6 on the women’s Singles list, Sun won the women’s final over Japan’s seventh-ranked Mima Ito, also by 4-1. Summaries:
ITTF World Tour/German Open
Bremen (GER) ~ 8-13 October 2019
(Full results here)
Men/Singles: Zhendong Fan (CHN) d. Xin Xu (CHN), 4-1. Men/Doubles: Xin Xu/Jingkun Liang (CHN) d. Benedikt Duda/Dang Qiu (GER), 3-1.
Women/Singles: Yingsha Sun (CHN) d. Mima Ito (JPN), 4-1. Women/Doubles: Jihee Jeon/Haeun Yang (KOR) d. Miyuu Kihara/Miyu Nagasaki (JPN), 3-1.
Mixed Doubles: Xin Xu/Yingsha Sun (CHN) d. Chuqin Wang/Manyu Wang (CHN), 3-1.