Cao Zhen emerged successful in an all Chinese final in the Women’s
Singles event at the Slovenian Open in Velenje on Saturday 17th January
2009 beating Fan Ying in the final.
Seeded no.5, Cao Zhen won 8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 3-11, 11-13, 13-11, 11-6 and thus maintained a tradition.
Whenever
Cao Zhen has faced Fan Ying in an ITTF Pro Tour tournament she has won;
furthermore, she has always progressed to win the title.
However, the contest in Slovenia was much different to those that
had gone before on the ITTF Pro Tour. The previous meetings had gone
the way of Cao Zhen in emphatic style.
First Ever Title
In
October 2003 she beat Fan Ying in the semi-finals of the Women’s
Singles event at the Malaysian Open on her way to winning her first
ever ITTF Pro Tour Women’s Singles crown, whilst in November 2005 at
the Liebherr German Open she repeated the dose to defeat Fan Ying in
the final.
High Success Rate
The
victory in Slovenia was for Cao Zhen the fifth Women’s Singles title of
her career on the ITTF Pro Tour being a player with an extremely high
success rate on the ITTF Pro Tour.
Prior to the Slovenian
Open, she had appeared 15 times being crowned the victor on four
occasions; in fact she won on her first two outings emerging victorious
in Malaysia in 2003 and at the China Panasonic Open one year later.
Furthermore, she has been a losing quarter-finalist on two occasions, a runner up twice and has never lost in the opening round.
Bridesmaid Again
Meanwhile for Fan Ying she had to settle for being the bridesmaid yet again.
It was the third occasion that she had reached a Women’s Singles final on the ITTF Pro Tour and lost.
In
addition to her defeat at the hands of Cao Zhen in 2005 at the Liebherr
German Open, she was the runner up to Tamara Boros at the same
tournament in 2002.
However, the latter loss must be put into
perspective; it was a fine performance for Fan Ying to reach the final
in Bayreuth, at the time she was only 15 years old.
Source: www.ittf.com
