FULL MATCH | Zhu Yuling vs Chen Xingtong | WS Final | WTT Champions Doha 2026

Taking out more established Japanese names on the way to the quarterfinals. Getting used to the challenge from Zhu Yuling is something that you'll have to learn quickly about. Great camera angle to highlight the difference in position behind the table from both the two players. Shibata at least a half a meter further back than Zhu Yuling. He likes to play close to the table, has that classic Chinese style. That allows her to put pressure on opponents. Shibata just choosing to and needing to perhaps take an extra half step further back. That gives her more time to think but it also means that her attacks can be seen a little bit earlier. Zhu Yuling counters. And we have our graphics now with us as well. So hello to the scoreboard in the corner. Great example there of why Saki Shibata is choosing to take that extra step. Allows her to play those full strokes and generate power and she guided that into the body of Zhu Yuling. That's why Zhu Yuling is taking on the world's best over the last 12 months and rising the rank type of reaction, speed, anticipation and touch from so close to the table. It should be Tongtong, Chen Qingtong in the final last week in Doha. Really good match. For a while like it would be Tongtong's day. Zhu Yuling cut through. Adding to her US Grand Smash victory from last summer. Most strongly on her ranking license. That is the accumulation of all the points you get. For finishing different levels and different events. Here in Doha this week there are 600 ranking points available for the ultimate winner in singles and doubles. 175 by the way for the quarterfinals and that is going to be an awful lot to Saki Shibata. Her ranking license at the moment only includes 480 so she's almost got half of what she's earned in a year in this one week. Fantastic exchange. Oh just the net cord which divides the two. You could watch that for a long long time. Calming effect. Rhythmic backhand to backhand exchanges. Oh yeah. Up the blade and flashes this forehand down the parallel. How much deception is there here? Well body-wise yes. Shape of the body. Zhu Yuling was expecting a diagonal. Because we don't see Saki Shibata all that often at the moment in these latter stages of star contenders and champions contender level events. She does have an element of surprise over opponents. She won't always have that. She continues to feature in these types of events but right now it's something she can really play on. Zhu Yuling is getting used to her still. Three point advantage. Yes nice change of direction to Pepper Zhu Yuling on one side and then execute this forehand. Four game points. Increasing the power ever so slightly. Such a controlled player Zhu Yuling. That creeps through and Saki Shibata puts the first game on going right now in the other semifinal and the other quarterfinal excuse me. Adriana Diaz and Chen Yi square off two and Setsuki Odo faces Shin Yubin on this table not long after this encounter. Pushing forward Zhu Yuling. It's a dangerous sight if you're the opponent. She's playing close to the table and she's looking to come further forward then. You know you're not putting enough pressure. Wow. Sat up too easy. That is called giving it a treat. So really well matched. She's an excellent backhand. The bedrock really of her exchanges. She's 47th in the world Saki Shibata and in her previous two matches she's overcome high-ranked Japanese players so she scored some very decent points domestically. Wins over Sakura Yokoi 3-0 and Miu Kihara. Kihara 22 in the world. Yokoi just outside the top 30 but ranked higher up the ladder than Saki Shibata so two really positive wins for her. In fact she was really pushed in her first match against Maria Xiao of Spain on that 3-2. Whereas Zhu has yet to drop a game coming into this match. She now of course has victories over Zhu Ziyu and Manaka Batra both through love and scoreline. She carries a lot of grace and calmness under fire Zhu Yuling. Games don't go her way. Snow really rocks her. She deals with the slings and arrows of her fortunes very calmly. As befits an associate professor at a university, at Tianjin University in fact. That's the career she moved into once she had to move on from table tennis in 2019 due to her illness. Table tennis is back in her life. Continuing it, keeping on with everything she threw herself into. So good at varying the depths of her shots as well as changing the angle. Zhu Yuling, she looks at those kind of changes in a rally as much as she'll look to alternate an angle. She's the great interloper in the world's top 10 at the moment. Zhu Yuling, top four all from China. Zhu Yuling representing Macau these days, number five in the world. Chinese players at number six, number eight Japan. Filling up the other places until we Not what it's quite, but they're the best thing we have to go off. Treasures, she's concerned about their ranking. I mean the rankings means a lot. Saki Shibata will be due to do just that. Zhu Yuling of course knows what it's like to be world number one back in 2018. Both these players are similarly aged by the way. Saki Shibata 28 and Zhu Yuling 31. So they have a history which goes back actually. They've met twice internationally before. Zhu winning 4-1 in Stockholm back in 2018 and Shibata winning 4-3 in Shenzhen. Also in 2018. So it's been a while since these two have jousted again. Such great slight of hand from the backhand side by Saki Shibata. We can see those angles changing from our camera angle. But it'd be much harder for Zhu Yuling to see where the ball is going next. Facing it down the other end. Slight slight changes but I guess she's keeping that racket face so central in front of her body. She's hiding the other clues that you can read for where the backhand is going to go. She's getting into that forehand and causing real problems for Zhu Yuling. Small cracks in it. The winner of this one will face Satsuki Oda or Shin Yubin. Our next match on this table by the way. So this side of the bracket entirely covered by table one. Steady hand from Zhu Yuling to pull herself back up the rope. Climb into the lead ahead of Shibata again. She was 7-4 down and she's now 10-7 up. It's a magnificent seven points out of her grasp at the end of that game. That stops the run. Zhu Yuling wrestling back a little bit of control over the way these rallies are being played. Dictated two times in the last couple of games. She's deciding the rhythm. Good scrambling. Very good scrambling from Shibata who's got a handy lead. It's funny you can be the player dictating the pace of a match and still be losing as Zhu Yuling is. And for Saki Shibata she is being at the pace of these rallies and the rhythm of them decided for her by Zhu but she's being far more consistent and she has a 5-1 lead. She doesn't always follow the dictator in the match is the one who ends up winning it. You can dance to your opponent's rhythm and in fact outdance them. It felt like it was coming that that was going to hammer home the advantage at 8-1. Chance walking away from her however. Really got under the skin of Zhu Yuling here. This is some comeback from losing those seven points in a row in the last game. Saki Shibata oh what a way to finish it off. That is a super that's an opportunity to do something she hasn't done for a long time. She has been ranked as high as 13 in the world before back in 2019 however. The temperament and the mentality of Zhu Yuling now becomes her strongest asset. We have to go back to 2024 to find the last star contender in which she appeared at. That was the star contender Bangkok. Since then it's been feeder events only on the WTT Tour of which she's won two titles. She is not used to occasions like this in her recent past. Certainly not to occasions where the opponent is of this kind of caliber. 5-1 to the world number five. Shibata delved into the nature of her resilience. Trying to get herself out of this hole. Setting things up for that forehand diagonal by Zhu. Really clever setup here. It's the pendulum serve and banks on the fact it's going to come back on the forehand. Puts it away. Nice change of tack from Saki Shibata. What she's got to do. Be unpredictable. Be at least a shot ahead of Zhu Yuling in terms of thought. Thinking about the point. Predicted by Zhu Yuling. What's required here. And she locks into an exchange from which only Zhu Yuling is going to come out on top you feel. Unpredictable. Predictable enough. Shibata's side of the table. It's been a five-point gap for Zhu returns. Two points away from a semi-final. Oh yes. Two in a row but needing three more just to get level. It's great play. A couple of forehands to control and then the backhand to finish. Three match points. Zhu Yuling moving around the table with energy.