Liang Jingkun made a strong comeback from 7-10 behind, and eliminated Lin Yunru 3-2

At the 2024 WTT Star Challenge Doha Station, on the evening of January 12, the men's singles 1/4 finals were contested, and the big fat Liang Jingkun of the Chinese table tennis team took the lead against Chinese Taipei star Lin Yunru. After fierce competition, the two sides fought five rounds to determine the winner, and in the decisive game, when Liang Jingkun fell behind 7-10, he staged a Jedi reversal to advance to the semifinals.

梁靖崑 3-2 林昀儒【6-11；11-7；13-15；11-2；12-10】

Highlights of the game: The Chinese table tennis team has 6 players in the quarterfinals, in addition to Liang Jingkun, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin, Lin Gaoyuan, Ma Long and Lin Shidong advanced. There are 2 matches against other associations in the quarterfinals, including this match between Liang Jingkun and Lin Yunru, and the other 1 is Wang Chuqin against Qiu Dang. Therefore, if Liang Jingkun can defeat Lin Yunru, the Chinese table tennis team is expected to win the men's singles semi-finals of this tournament.

Brief introduction of both sides: Liang Jingkun is currently ranked fourth in the world, ahead of Lin Yunru, who is ranked seventh in the world, and is now 27 years old and five years older than Lin Yunru. Liang Jingkun is a right-handed cross-racketer with 7 international titles, while Lin Yunru is a left-handed cross-racket with 5 international titles.

Head to head record: This is the fourth meeting between the two sides on an international stage, with the first meeting coming at the 2018 Austrian Open, where Liang Jingkun defeated 4-2. The second time was in the 2023 Xinxiang Championship, where Liang Jingkun once again eliminated Lin Yunru 4-2. The third meeting was in the men's finals in early January 2024, where Liang Jingkun defeated his opponent 3-1, but Liang Jingkun couldn't go far in the men's finals before being defeated by Qiu Dang.

Venue: Doha-Lusail Stadium

Game recap

At the beginning, Lin Yunru took the lead in scoring, Liang Jingkun bit the score to 2 draws, and the two sides scored 4 draws in a row; After that, Liang Jingkun seized the opportunity to serve, chased two points in a row to 6-8, and then dominated Lalin Yunru in multiple rounds, thus winning the game point at 10-6. After that, Lin Yunru received the serve and twisted it into place, defended the attack and scored points, thus winning the first game 11-6.

In the second game, Liang Jingkun received the serve and hit the hand, scored 2 points in a row to take the lead, and then withstood the lead to 3-0 in the multi-shot pull, and then Lin Yunru calculated the dead corner to recover 1 point. After that, Liang Jingkun continued to suppress his opponent strongly, rewriting the score to 7-1, and then Lin Yunru seized the opportunity to serve, and then stabilized the serve and chased four points in a row to 5-7. Liang finally withstood the pressure, won the game point 10-5, and won the second game 11-7.

In the third game, the two sides alternated scores to 2 draws, and then advanced to 4 draws, and then Liang Jingkun continued to dominate and rewrite the score to 6-4. After that, Liang Jingkun changed the line to transfer the lead to 8-4, and then grabbed sideways to 9-5, and then Lin Yunru chased 2 points in a row, Liang Jingkun resisted to get the game point 10-7, but failed to seize the opportunity to be chased to 10 draws. The chasing stage is extremely exciting, you come and go very closely, Lin Yunru narrowly won 15-13.

Liang led 2-0 in the fourth game and then took a 4-0 lead on serve, and then scored another point to give him a 5-0 lead in the opening game. Then the two sides exchanged errors, Liang Jingkun led to 6-1, and then Lin Yunru continued to make mistakes, Liang Jingkun led to 8-1. After that, Liang Jingkun wiped the net again and scored directly to get the game point at 10-1, and then Lin Yunru recovered 1 point, and Liang Jingkun no longer gave a chance to win 11-2.

In the deciding game, Lin Yunru scored first, Liang Jingkun turned to equalize, and then Liang Jingkun made a mistake and did not control it, and Lin Yunru scored 4 points in a row to lead 5-1. After that, Liang Jingkun mobilized the opponent to recover 1 point, Lin Yunru served quickly to lead to 6-2, and then Liang Jingkun only got 1 point on the serve, but fortunately calculated the opponent's serve and followed the score to 5-8.

After that, Liang Jingkun continued to chase to 7-8, Lin Yunru resisted to get the match point at 10-7, and then Liang Jingkun saved three points in a row, and wiped the side ball to flip the match point 11-10. Liang then scored again and won the game 12-10.

In the women's singles 1/4 finals at the same time, Wang Manyu and Chen Xingtong competed for the semi-finals, and Wang Manyu played strongly, defeating Chen Xingtong with a total score of 3-0 [11-5, 11-8, 11-8] and successfully advanced to the women's singles semifinals.