On April 19, Beijing time, the Macau World Cup held a men's and women's singles 1/4 final that ended this morning. The focus battle was played by China's Ma Long against Japan's Hayasuke Togami. Ma Long is attacking for his third World Cup men's singles title.
Malone is currently ranked fourth in the world and Hayasuke Togami is currently ranked 25th in the world. There is a gap in the overall strength of the two, but Hayasuke Togami has been in very good form recently, and he has also successfully qualified for the men's singles competition of the Japanese team in Paris through the selection of the Japanese team. The only recent meeting between the two has been in the Pyeongchang Asian Championships team race Ma Long's 3-0 victory over Hayasuke Togami, and the two are relatively not so familiar.
In the group stage, Hayasuke Togami defeated the world No. 10 Qiu Dang to advance to the knockout round, and in the 1/8 finals, Hayasuke Togami defeated Feretas 4:2 to advance to the quarterfinals, and Ma Long defeated the French 17-year-old Lebrun 4:2 to advance to the quarterfinals. In this game, Ma Long and Hayasuke Togami played very intensely and gave a very exciting game.
Marlon 4-2 Hayasuke Togami [5-11,11-5,7-11,11-7,11-3,11-3].
In the first game, Hayasuke Togami entered the state very quickly, winning the first game 5:2, 7:5, 11:5.
After adapting to the first game, Ma Long actively adjusted his state in the second game, taking a 7:3 lead in the opening game, 8:4, and 11:5 to pull back a game. In this game, Malone actively limited the quality of Hayasuke Togami's serve to create opportunities for himself to win the match.
In the third game, Hayasuke Togami took a 6:1 lead at the beginning, Ma Long began to chase points and scored four points in a row to fall behind by one point 5:6, Hayasuke Togami strengthened his offense and won the third game 8:5, 11:7.
In the fourth game, Hayasuke Togami led 3:1 at the beginning, and was scored 6 points in a row by Ma Long, 7:3. Malone took advantage of the change in serve to score 11-7 in a row, winning the fourth game to tie the score at 2:2.
In the crucial fifth game, Malone actively mobilized himself, taking a 4:1 lead at the beginning, 5:3, 11:3 neatly, and winning the key fifth game more and more smoothly. The big score of 3:2 led Hayasuke Togami to create psychological pressure.
In the sixth game, Hayasuke Togami, who lost a key game, also changed his mentality, and was beaten by Ma Long with a score of 7:0 at the beginning, Hayasuke Togami was stunned, and his confidence became less and less, Ma Long completely played with momentum, frequently used his forehand to score, 9:1, 11:3 Ma Long won the sixth game, and finally defeated Hayasuke Togami 4:2 to advance to the top 4.
After the game, Malone said it was a very tough match, as he had predicted before the game. Hayasuke Togami's ability to reach the quarterfinals also shows that his strength and recent form are very good, he is also a young and impactful player, and he is very well prepared for difficulties before the game. It can be said that he did not take the initiative in the first four games, and through active adjustments, he played well in the last two games.
When talking about his current state and the goal of this competition, Malone choked up and said that it was beyond his imagination to be able to reach the top four. I'm not sure how many times this kind of occasion has been played, but I cherish it very much.