Japanese Cadet causes biggest Surprise in early rounds of the 2007 Asia Cup

The International Table Tennis Federation's World Cup is arguably the most prestigious event on the Calendar. Inviting the top 16 players from around the World, including a Continental Representative, it is truly the cream of the table tennis elite that are invited. In Asia, the continental representative is reserved by the winner of the annual Asia Cup. Therefore the winner of this years 2007 Hanoi Television Asian Cup will book their place into the 2008 World Cup. With such a wide open field and no players from China, the opportunity really opens up for the players on site here in Hanoi.

Earlier today on the 24th of November 2007 in the Quan Ngua Gymnasium Hanoi, Vietnam the qualification stages were played and won. Although there were no major surprises with the top 4 seeds going through to the quarter final stages. However there was two results which if you looked at the World Rankings would have surprised and which did not go according to the top seeds plans.

In particular was 14 year old World Ranked number 160 Ishikawa Kasumi. Defeating the much more experienced and World ranked number 8 WANG Yue Gu from Singapore. It was a blistering start from the exciting left handed teenager, who raced to a two games to zero lead. A nail biting 3rd game saw the experience of WANG fight back and when Ishikawa served a fault at 9 all in the 4th game and lose the game normally you would start to think that WANG would eventually prevail. Yet the pint sized Ishikawa stuck to her guns and with topspin's on both sides not missing it was soon obvious that she could win the match, and win she did 11-7. "I played far above myself and never expected I could play at that level" Ishikawa said after the match. "I played slowly and calmly and didn't feel any pressure at all, I was so happy with my performance" the teenager continued.

KASUMI ISHIKAWAI - Photo courtesy of Butterfly Vietnam

In the men's it was Korea's KIM Jung Hoon, ranked number 113 in the World who caused the upset, defeating the rising young star from Hong Kong JIANG Tianyi, who currently holds a World Ranking 60 times higher than his opponent at number 53. A true epic that went all the way to the wire and which had the hundreds of spectators in raptures. Hoon wow 3 games to 2 and the final game 16-14.

Quarter Finals Start later tonight.