Ma Long beat Chinese national team colleague Fan Zhendong to win the Seamaster World Tour Qatar Open at the Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiyah Arena in Doha yesterday.
Long won 11-8, 11-8, 11-7, 5-11, 6-11, 11-4 for his second straight title in Doha. He had also won the singles crown in 2013.
Long took a 2-0 lead after capturing the first two closely fought games, relying on his renowned forehand top spin.
He was also quick to seize the initiative in the third game, establishing an 8-6 lead. It was a crucial advantage. He surrendered just one point, a 3-0 lead was established.
Fan Zhendong secured the fourth and fifth games playing fluently, but Long produced a devastating final effort to lead 6-3 and wrapped up the match.
“Today I think the both of us performed very well. I was very proactive at the start and established a three-nil lead. In the fourth and fifth games, Fan Zhendong changed his strategy, I knew the sixth game was crucial, so I changed my strategy as well,” said Long.
“Luckily the change worked well. I’m very happy with the title. It’s my first international event of the year. I won my first title of 2016 in Qatar as well and moved on to win more. I even became the Olympic Champion, so I hope retaining this title in Qatar will be another good start to 2017 for me,” he added.
Additionally, the win for Long means that he is ever closer to record of Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus who owns 26 ITTF World Tour Men’s singles titles. With the Qatar title, Long took his tally to 23.
Fan had lost the 2016 title, also to Long. Overall, China has secured the men’s singles title at ITTF World Tour events on 140 occasions; the contest between Ma Long and Fan Zhendong was the 93rd all-Chinese final.
Meanwhile, the women’s title also went to a Chinese, with Chen Meng beating Wang Manyu 12-10, 11-9, 11-2, 2-11, 11-6.
Earlier they had won the doubles title, but found themselves on opposite ends of the table later in the singles final.
The opening two games were keenly contested but Chen’s positive athletic play was rewarded as she took a 2-0 lead. The third game was a stroll, but Wang took the fourth easily to entertain hopes of a fightback.
However, that was not to be as Chen took the fifth game easily to complete the win.
“We are teammates so we know each other very well, it was a very tough match; especially in the first two games, I only won by a narrow margin of two points in each game, it was tedious mentally as well to take those two games. The first two games were crucial, so after winning those, it was easier for the remaining of the match,” said Chen.
It was for Chen’s sixth victory in seven ITTF World Tour final appearances.