Poland’s Wojciech Szewczyk and Japan’s Chihiro Kawahara have been crowned China Open champions for the first time, overcoming Dang Jinhu and Liu Shasha in the respective men’s and women’s finals in Shanghai.
Szewczyk became Poland’s first ever China Open champion after dismantling Dang 11-5 in the men’s final, securing the $40,000 top prize and one of the biggest accolades of his career.
It was an exasperating start to the final for Szewczyk as he missed a nine ball with tricky cueing for a break and run, before making amends by capitalising on Dang’s missed two ball in rack two and then breaking and running in the third.
From there onwards, it would become a tactical contest with numerous safety exchanges. Szewczyk would exploit Dang’s errors and dominate those safety battles to emerge a comfortable 11-5 winner.
Szewczyk had defeated Polish teammate Daniel Maciol 11-7 in the semi-finals, having pulled off an impressive quarter-final win over WPA number three Wu Kun-Lin, who had beaten Joshua Filler in the preceding round.
The former world 10-ball champion’s toughest encounter came in the last 16, where he overcame Taiwanese youngster Sun Yi-Hsuan 11-9 following a dominant 11-1 victory over Sanjin Pehlivanovic.
Spanish Open champion Dang, meanwhile, emerged through two hill-hill affairs in the single elimination phase against Robbie Capito and Stefan Kasper, and he notably stunned Fedor Gorst 11-7 in the semi-finals.
In addition, there was a first-time China Open champion crowned in the women’s tournament as Japanese number one Chihiro Kawahara sealed the biggest title of her career and the $36,000 top prize.
Kawahara overcame 2013 champion Liu Shasha 9-7 in the final, with Liu holding a slender lead for the vast majority of the contest until missing the nine ball and gifting her Japanese opponent a two-rack buffer at 8-6.
It was a nerve-wracking occasion for the former Women’s World Championship runner-up in what proved to be the final rack, although Kawahara kept her nerves in check and executed impressive cuts on the six and seven balls on her way to the title.
Kawahara’s route to victory was nothing short of spectacular, opening her campaign with successive 7-6 victories over Vietnam’s Bui Xuan Vang and Taiwan’s Tsai Pei-Chun.
She then overcame three current or former women’s world number ones to reach the final, sweeping aside top seed Kristina Tkach, Chou Chieh-Yu and Jasmin Ouschan in phenomenal fashion.
Four-time and defending champion Han Yu endured a shock double elimination exit following two defeats to Fu Xiaofang, who was beaten by Liu in the semi-finals.
