WTT Doha Star Challenge: Five titles awarded, Zhou Qihao claims men's singles crown, Zhu Yuling stages a comeback victory

On January 19th Beijing time, the WTT Doha Star Challenge wrapped up all competitions. In the climax match, Zhu Yuling came back from 0-2 down to win four consecutive games and beat Hitomi Sato 4-2. In men's singles, Zhou Qihao battled through six tough games to overcome Wen Ruibo 4-2. Thus, all five titles for this event have been claimed: Chinese men's singles, Macau women's singles, Hong Kong mixed doubles, Japanese women's doubles, and Korean men's doubles took the gold!

Zhu Yuling faced Hitomi Sato. Zhu Yuling, a former mainstay of the Chinese national team, now represents Macau. She recently won the championship at the Doha Open and continued her strong form in this star challenge, reaching the deciding game and defeating the Japanese player to advance to the final. Her opponent in the final was another Japanese player, Hitomi Sato, who had been in excellent form throughout the tournament, sweeping past strong contenders including Chinese rising star Kuai Man. Sato’s defensive chopping style posed a tough challenge, putting Zhu Yuling to a stern test. At the start, Zhu was slow to warm up, falling behind 5-11 in the first game. In the second game, she adapted to Sato’s rhythm and fought fiercely but narrowly lost 11-13, trailing 0-2 overall. Zhu then adjusted her strategy to stabilize the pace and quickly found a way to contain her opponent, winning the third game 11-7. In the following games, Zhu fully controlled the tempo, delivering sharp attacks and solid defense, calmly pressuring Sato and winning three straight games 11-6, 11-6, and 11-5. With an overwhelming comeback, she won four consecutive games to complete a remarkable turnaround. Winning two titles in a week, Zhu Yuling proved herself as the standout women’s singles player and showed her great skill against chopping styles!

Zhou Qihao competed against Wen Ruibo in an all-Chinese showdown where either winner was acceptable as champion. Both players performed well en route to the final, each causing upsets; notably, Wen Ruibo eliminated the top favorite, Brazilian star Hugo Calderano. Their advancement was therefore quite remarkable. Both players know each other well, so neither could claim the title easily. Wen started strongly, quickly taking the lead with aggressive attacks and securing the first game 11-8 despite Zhou’s fierce comeback. Zhou responded in the second game, pulling ahead and holding off Wen’s counterattack to win 11-9. Riding this momentum, Zhou played confidently with fast attacks, winning two more games 11-7, 11-7 to lead 3-1 and reach match point. Wen refused to concede, launching a strong comeback to save a match point with an 11-5 win, narrowing the score to 2-3. The sixth game was crucial and intensely fought. After trading points evenly to 8-8, Zhou switched into scoring mode, finishing with a 3-0 run to clinch the match 4-2. This victory marked the first Chinese national team title of the new year!

This event has successfully concluded. We look forward to the Chinese national team winning even more titles in upcoming tournaments — stay tuned!

Written by / Sports Novel