China’s Xue Fei seizes opportunity to shine by stunning Japan’s Tomokazu Harimoto at Singapore Smash

SINGAPORE – There are few better ways for a rising Chinese table tennis player to announce his arrival on the world stage than to upset a top exponent from eternal rivals Japan.

On Feb 5, world No. 53 Xue Fei did exactly that when he beat third-ranked Tomokazu Harimoto 3-1 (11-6, 11-6, 6-11, 11-6) to progress to the last 16 of the Singapore Smash men’s singles event, where he will meet 14th-ranked Frenchman Alexis Lebrun on Feb 6.

The 25-year-old, who was in the main draw because of teammate Lin Gaoyuan’s withdrawal, said: “This is my first time playing him but my team and I prepared well. I was mainly focused on controlling the tempo and not being disrupted, which I did well in some parts.

“Harimoto showed some variations, and I couldn’t adapt and react promptly to his changes. I was initially hesitant, and this is something that I have to work on.”

In the battle of the two former junior world champions at the OCBC Arena, it was Xue who was the more patient player.

After losing the first three points, the unorthodox right-handed penholder managed to drag the 21-year-old Asian champion away from the table and win most rallies.

Down two games and trailing 4-5 in the third, Harimoto utilised his timeout and managed to regroup to claw back a game. But his piercing shouts of “choleh!” gradually faded as Xue recorded what could be a career-transforming win, after an earlier victory against South Korea’s 32nd-ranked Lee Sang-su.

In an era of speed and power, table tennis is currently dominated by shakehand-grip players, although there are exceptions in the men’s singles with Felix Lebrun of France, Germany’s Qiu Dang, Hong Kong’s Wong Chun Ting and Xue, who threaten to overturn the established world order with their varied spins and angles.

After learning the sport from age four, Xue, who is from the inner Mongolian city of Hohhot, was called up to the national team’s centralised training after being crowned national youth champion in 2010.

In 2017, he became the first penholder to sweep the boy’s singles, doubles, team and mixed doubles titles at the World Junior Table Tennis Championships.

While Xue was part of China’s gold-winning men’s team at the 2018 Asian Games and has been compared with current China men’s team head coach Wang Hao, a top penholder player in his day, he has not quite broken through within the first team yet.

However, legend Ma Long and Olympic champion Fan Zhendong’s withdrawal from the world rankings has opened doors. And Xue, with WTT Feeder titles in Muscat, Oman, and Halmstad, Sweden, in 2024, and now the big win against Harimoto, is looking to seize his opportunity.

Though Xue skirted around the issue, Wang had earlier singled him out for praise, noting his maturity and the need for the next generation of players such as 19-year-old Lin Shidong and Xue to step up, in order for China to extend their dominance of the sport.

Harimoto’s 16-year-old sister, world No. 6 Miwa was also knocked out by a lower-ranked Chinese with a unique playing style as 30th-ranked He Zhuojia prevailed 3-0 (11-4, 11-4, 11-9) with her long-pimple bat. The 26-year-old will take on South Korea’s world No. 9 Shin Yu-bin for a place in the women’s singles quarter-finals.

There was another upset in the men’s singles as 56th-ranked American Kanak Jha came from behind to eliminate Sweden’s world No. 7 and Paris Olympics silver medallist Truls Moregard 3-2 (6-11, 11-9, 11-8, 9-11, 11-2) to set up a last-16 clash with Germany’s 10th-ranked Qiu.

Elsewhere, the big guns and crowd favourites – China’s world No. 1 Sun Yingsha and Japan’s eighth-ranked Mima Ito in the women’s singles, China’s world No. 2 Lin Shidong and Brazil’s sixth-ranked Hugo Calderano in the men’s singles – progressed to the last 16.

In the men’s doubles, French brothers and world No. 1 Alexis and Felix survived a scare before beating South Korea’s 26th-ranked Lim Jong-hoon and An Jae-hyun 3-2 (11-5, 7-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-7).

But Singapore’s participation in the US$1.5 million (S$2.02 million) Singapore Smash has ended following the elimination of its remaining men’s doubles duos.

China’s Wang Chuqin and Lin – first and second in the men’s singles world ranking – combined for the first time as they beat 28th-ranked Clarence Chew and Josh Chua 3-0 (11-6, 12-10, 11-4) to enter the quarter-finals, where they will meet Sweden’s 2021 world champions, 59th-ranked Swedes Kristian Karlsson and Mattias Falck.

After Wang praised the Singaporeans, who turned a 4-6 deficit into a 10-6 lead in a pacy second game, Chew said: “It was a pity we couldn’t win the second game. We had four game points and tried to plot for that one point, but our opponents showed their quality with their unpredictable returns.”

Chua added: “We can be more decisive while taking the initiative to attack on our service... and also work on how to turn defence into attack.”

World No. 7 and Asian Table Tennis Championships silver medallists Koen Pang and Izaac Quek also lost to another new combination as Taiwanese pair Lin Yun-ju and Kao Cheng-jui prevailed 3-1 (11-4, 9-11, 11-7, 11-6).

Quek said: “Definitely, it’s disappointing as we wanted to play as many matches as we could in front of the home crowd.”

Pang noted: “We were not bad. It was just that they were more attacking and controlled the points more with short balls and we couldn’t really find the point to start attacking and create our momentum.

“Hopefully, we will be able to perform better at subsequent Smashes this year and next year’s Singapore Smash.”