Table Tennis/WTT Frankfurt Championships Lin Yunru lost to Zhang Benzhi and stopped in the top 4

The WTT Frankfurt Championship saw a top four finish in the men’s singles today. Taiwanese player Lin Yunru faced his old enemy Zhang Benzhi and fought hard for 62 minutes. Yet he lost 9-11, 10-12, 11-8, 11-7, 6-11, 11-9, 8-11 and missed the final.

Lin Yunru, ranked sixth in the men’s singles in the World Table Tennis Professional League (WTT), played 15 times against world third-ranked Zhang Benzhi before the game. Although Lin Yunru was at a disadvantage with 5 wins and 10 losses, in the last 4 matches between the two, they won 2-2.

At the beginning of the first game, Zhang Benzhi took a 4-0 lead. Then Lin Yunru counterattacked and once again reached the lead of 8-10. Unexpectedly, Zhang Benzhi called a timeout in advance, finally allowing him to win the first game as he wanted.

In the second game, Zhang Benzhi continued to attack and led 7-4 and 9-7 twice. Although Lin Yunru chased the tie at 10-10, then Zhang Benzhi took the initiative to attack and score points twice in a row, and successfully won 2 consecutive games.

Lin Yunru also called timeout when he was behind 3-5 in the early part of the third game. After coming back, he was tied at 8-8. Then he scored 2 consecutive backhand goals to get the last point of the game and successfully won the first game.

In the fourth game, Lin Yunru also fell behind 3-5 at first, but then he succeeded in several fast-paced stalemates on the COSCO table, allowing him to score 7 consecutive points to score the last point of the game, and then the two sides were tied.

When Zhang Benzhi led 4-3 in the 5th game, he launched a 5-1 attack to lay the foundation for victory and take the lead in the drawing card. However, Lin Yunru still did not give up in the sixth game. They took a huge lead of 8-2 in the beginning itself. Although he was once chased by 1 point, he still managed to win the game without any risk.

In the 7th game, which was the key to the decisive victory, both sides were tied at 7-7. Lin Yunru made a mistake receiving the serve first, and then another forehand return ball went out of bounds, allowing Zhang Benzhi to take advantage of the situation and score 3 consecutive points, leading to 3 final points at 10-7.

Although Lin Yunru tried hard to recover the 1st ball, Zhang Benzhi was prepared when receiving the serve and fought directly with the backhand, so that Lin Yunru had no time to react and could only watch his opponent win.

Lin Yunru won the Frankfurt Championships in 2023. At that time, he successively defeated Harimoto Tomokazu, Wang Chuqin, Ma Long and other world-famous players among the top 8 to reach the top of the podium. He stopped in the top 4 in 2024 and missed the top 16 last year.

Although Lin Yunru failed to book a ticket to the final, he has reached the semi-finals and is expected to achieve a career-best fifth place in the latest world rankings next week.