Jun Mizutani wins Austrian Open 2015

Seed no.2 Jun Mizutani from Japan didn't struggle to go to final of Austrian Open. And when he got there, he managed to beat Germany's Dimitrij Ovtcharov 4 games to 1 (11-7, 11-8, 11-13, 14-12, 11-6). This is third consecutive victory for Jun Mizutani, as he beat Dimitrij in the finals of 2014 Grand Finals, and in WTTTC 2014 Zen Noh Japan. Total score between these two is 10 to 4 in favour of Jun Mizutani. You can check all their results here.

Winner of Austrian Open 2015 - Jun Mizutani

4-1 does sound like a safe and clear victory, but it wasn't like that. Jun struggled with Dimas backhand for a while, but he managed to endure. It is safe to say that when speaking of table tennis rivalries, that Ovtcharov vs Mizutani is one of the biggest. (that is, when we don't count China).

Austrian Open 2015 Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs Jun Mizutani Final

Saviour of long pips - Ruwen Filus

Earlier this year Ruwen went all the way to the final of Belarus Open 2015 where he lost to Li Ping . But let's just not talk about that tournament. Let us talk about Ruwen in general in the past 3 or 4 years. First of all - Ruwen is a modern type defender. We all know what that means - he chops with long pimples on backhand (Butterfly Feint Long 3) and attacks and loops with inverted rubber on the forehand (Butterfly Tenergy 05). To find more about Ruwen Filus i suggest you go here. His game play reminds me of Chen Weixing, only a little bit slower, but on the other side, a little bit safer to twiddle inverted rubber to backhand and to produce great spin. Overall he and Gionis Panagiotis represent current modern table tennis defenders.

Hope for modern defence!

Anyway, Ruwen managed to go all the way to semi finals, where he lost to his compatriot Dimitrij Ovtcharov in a close match 4-3 (11-8, 11-13, 8-11, 11-4, 11-8, 2-11, 12-10)

Austrian Open 2015 Dimitrij Ovtcharov vs Ruwen Filus 1/4 finals

Several upsets at Austrian Open 2015!

Koki Niwa vs Alexander Shibaev - not to be rude or something, but Koki Niwa is better ranked player, and he showed much more in 2015 than Shibaev. But! When these two met at round of 32, Shibave managed to pull an upset. Surprise at Austrian Open! 4 games to 2 for Alexander Shibaev

Another big surprise is defeat of Vladimir Samsonov. He faced Andrej Gacina from Croatia. We all know that Gacina is good player. It's sad that Andrej didn't attend WTTC 2015 due to injuries. But he is back and i think that he will get far in this tournament.

Table tennis defenders are getting weaker!

Shiono Masato, a not so young prodigy of Japan, a "younger brother" of Matsushita, got defeated early. Again. A little reminder, he lost in Czech Open 2015, that was 3 days ago to Aleksandar Karakasevic- veteran, backhand pro from Serbia. This time he faced Kim Donghyun from South Korea. Maybe it was because all Korean players know how to play against defence - since they have a great sparring partner for that type of training - Joo Sae Hyuk. ,nevertheless Shiono lost 4 games to 1 and finished another tournament really early. I really hope that Shiono will find his way back to the top level of table tennis since he is, and you must admit it, a entertaining player to watch.

Will Shiono Masato play like he did in 2013?

In the round of 64, Chuang Chih Yuan had to face Adam Pattantyus, a player from Hungary who recently eliminated him already in the 2nd round. At least i expected that this match would be 3 all and 9 all, but no. Chuang destroyed Adam 4 games to 0 (11-4, 11-6, 11-7, 11-8). It seems that Chuang found a tactic against defenders.

Table tennis match stopped because of rain

A qualification group match between Jean-Michel Saive from Belgium and Tsuboi Yuma from Japan had to be stopped because apparently water was dripping from the roof. They had to change location of their match in order to continue.

Eventually Tsuboi Yuma won that match 4 games to 1.