Taipei, July 22 (CNA) Taiwan 17-year-old table tennis player Lin Yun-ju (林昀儒) won the men's singles title at the T2 Diamond tournament in Malaysia Sunday.
The teen defeated China's Fan Zhendong (樊振東), who was the word's top ranker player for the first six months of the year, 4-1 in the final.
In the first game, Lin took a 10-5 lead and kept up the pressure on Fan to win 11-7.
Lin continued to play to a high level in the second game, which he won 11-4. However, Fan then found his form to briefly threaten a comeback as he took the third game 11-8.
Trailing Fan 4-5 at the beginning of the fourth game, the young Taiwanese rallied to take the next seven points in a row and win the game 11-5.
Lin scored another five consecutive points in the fifth game to prevail 5-0.
Commenting on Lin's victory, Lin Hsueh-i (林學宜), the newly-crowned champion's father told CNA Monday that he watched the whole game and is delight that his son won.
Lin Hsueh-i (right) / photo from facebook.com/niupublic
He also expressed his gratitude to the National Sports Training Center, where his son trained, and also the Sports Administration.
The T2 Diamond tournament is based on a no-deuce, time-based format.
According to the T2 Diamond tournament website, if at the 24th minute of play, neither player has won fours games the match enters a "Fast Five" format until one of the players has won four games.
The T2 Diamond Table Tennis League is a series of annual professional events organized in collaboration with the International Table Tennis Federation. It features the top 32 male and female players in the world, competing across three tournaments for a combined purse of US$1.5 million, its website said.
This season kicked off in Johor Bahru in Malaysia from July 18-21. It moves to Haikou, China on Sept. 26-29, with the final leg held in Singapore from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1.
(By Long Po-an and Chung Yu-chen)
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