Muscat: World No 28 Jang Woojin from Korea Republic clinched the men’s singles title in the WTT Contender Muscat 2022 at the indoor courts of Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex on Saturday. Woojin defeated Chinese Liang Yanning 4-3 in a thrilling contest with a scoreline of 9-11, 11-6, 7-11, 11-8, 4-11, 11-9 and 11-4. World No 33 Chen Xingtong from China beat World No 88 Choi Hyojoo from Korea Republic 4-0 to claim the gold medal in the women’s singles. The scoreline was 8-11, 2-11, 8-11, 9-11.
In the men’s doubles final, Chinese players Sai Linwei and Niu Guankai defeated Korean duo of Lee Sangsu and An Jaehyun 3-0. Chinese players continued their domination on the event titles as the duo of Qian Tianyi and Chen Xingtong beat the pair of Lily Zhang (USA) and Barbora Balazova (Slovak Republic) 3-0 to win the women’s doubles.
On Friday night, the duo of Liu Yebo and Chen Xingtong managed to lift the mixed doubles title after edging their compatriots Xu Haidong and Wu Yangchen 3-1 after four tight sets.
After the conclusion of each final event, the podium ceremony took place. The medals and trophies were distributed by several chief guests including Eng Mohammed bin Salim al Busaidi, Chairman of Omran, Dr Khamis bin Salim al Jabri, CEO of Oman Sail, Eng Alaa al Deen bin Abdullah Bait Fadhel, CCO of Omantel, Stephen Duckitt, Event Strategy Director, and Abdullah Bamakhalif, Chairman of OTTA.
With the conclusion of all the finals, WTT Contender Muscat 2022 came to an end after six days of thrilling and exciting competitions. The participants will head off to Kazakhstan to take part in WTT Contender Almaty 2022.
The Muscat TT event, which was under the organisation of Oman Table Tennis Association (OTTA) in cooperation with WTT and ITTF, featured participation of more than 100 participants representing 29 countries from different parts of the world.
The chief of OTTA said that the OTTA hosted WTT Contender Muscat 2022 twice in 2022. “We are very pleased with another successful edition of the WTT Contender event in Muscat. Hosting this world class event twice in the same year was a new step for us and we managed to host the event on a bright note. Hosting of the senior players event requires further requirements than the youth and junior categories event. The OTTA has wide experience in hosting top events and we are one step forward in hosting the major TT event represented by the World Veteran Championship in Muscat during the start of 2023,” he added.
“Our focus is to set Muscat city as one of the global destinations for TT in the world map. A special thanks to all of our partners and stakeholders in assisting and collaborating with us to make this event happen,” he concluded.
