Wang Chuqin Avenges US Loss, Beats Anders Lind 3-0 in Frankfurt
Wang Chuqin, the world No. 4 from China, needed three games and a little nerve to beat Denmark’s Anders Lind at the WTT Champions Frankfurt on Monday, winning 11-7, 14-12, 11-9 to reach the men’s singles round of 16.
The scoreline reads comfortable. The middle game did not. Wang and Lind traded points deep into the second, with Lind saving game points and pushing the frame to 12-12 before Wang closed it out 14-12. That was the hinge of the match: had Lind taken it, the contest would have been level and the momentum with the lower-ranked player.
There is a backstory. Lind, ranked 17th in the world, beat Wang 3-1 at the WTT US Smash earlier this year, one of the more surprising results of the season. Monday’s win counts as revenge, and it shifts the pair’s international head-to-head record to 3-2 in Wang’s favor. For a player of Wang’s standing, that is a statistic worth correcting.
Wang’s next opponent comes from the match between Wen Ruibo and Shunsuke Togami, a pairing that will tell him more about the shape of his week than the Lind result did. Togami in particular is a familiar problem for Chinese players: quick, low, and comfortable playing close to the table.
The same round produced a clean result for Tomokazu Harimoto of Japan, who beat Sidorenko 3-0 with scores of 11-6, 11-8, 11-7. Harimoto will face the winner of the match between Lim Jong-hoon and Anton Källberg. The draw is beginning to compress, and the Frankfurt stop is one of the last big WTT events of the calendar year, so ranking points carry weight for seeding into next season.
The WTT Champions series is the top tier of World Table Tennis’s professional calendar, sitting above the Contender events and below only the Grand Smashes and the Finals. Champions events bring together a narrow field of the world’s best, which is why a round-of-16 match can pair the world No. 4 with a player who has already beaten him this year.
For Wang, the win matters less as a statement than as a correction. He arrived in Frankfurt as one of the favorites, and a first-round exit would have been an awkward note to end the year on. Instead he gets a day to prepare, a slightly better head-to-head record, and a next opponent whose identity he will learn by watching.
What to watch is the second game. Wang let a lead slip and had to save the frame from 12-12, and against a sharper opponent that wobble could cost him a match. The 14-12 score is the most informative number on the sheet.