Liang Jingkun Opens Montpellier Campaign With Straight-Games Win
Liang Jingkun opened his 2026 WTT Champions Montpellier campaign with a clean 3-0 win over Wen Ruibo in the men’s singles round of 32, advancing to the last 16 without dropping a game. The scoreline read 13-11, 11-8, 11-4 — a match that looked comfortable on paper but began as a genuine scrap.
The opening game set the tone. Liang, a Chinese international known for his heavy forehand and patient rally play, was pushed to deuce before edging it 13-11. From there the match tilted: he took the second 11-8 and closed out the third 11-4, tightening his error count as Wen’s resistance faded.
Wen Ruibo is a younger Chinese player, and a first-round meeting between two compatriots at a WTT Champions event — one of the tour’s top-tier stops — is the kind of draw that guarantees an early exit for one half of a national squad that travels deep. For Liang, the value is in banking the win quickly and saving energy for a tougher second round.
That second round is where the tournament sharpens. Liang will face Simon Gauzy of France, who advanced by beating Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto 3-0. Harimoto, one of the most recognizable names in the men’s game and a perennial threat to Chinese players, was swept aside in straight games — a result that underlines both Gauzy’s current form and the difficulty of the draw.
Playing Gauzy in Montpellier adds a familiar complication. French crowds are among the loudest and most partisan on the table tennis circuit, and a home player riding a statement win over Harimoto will arrive with momentum and the arena behind him. Liang’s task is to impose his rhythm early and keep the rallies long enough to blunt that energy.
For global readers newer to the sport: WTT Champions events are invitation-based tournaments that gather the top-ranked players, and the round of 32 is a knockout stage — lose once and the event is over. Best-of-five matches mean a slow start can be fatal, which is why Liang’s escape from a tight first game mattered more than the final margin suggests.
Liang is a fixture of China’s men’s team, a player whose career has mixed major team honors with individual runs that have sometimes stalled against the very top seeds. A deep run in Montpellier would not redefine his career, but on a tour where ranking points compound, every last-16 berth counts toward seeding at the season’s bigger events.
The immediate question is whether the straight-games win reflects sharp form or simply a favorable first-round matchup. The Gauzy match should answer it: a French opponent in front of a home crowd, fresh off eliminating Harimoto, is precisely the sort of test that separates a routine opening win from a genuine title run.