Lubomir Pistej (Photo WTT)
Lubomir Pistej has made it to the men’s singles main draw at a WTT Grand Smash for the first time in his career, after previously failing to navigate the qualifying rounds on 10 occasions, beating Deni Kozul 14-12, 8-11, 11-8, 11-8at the China Smash table tennis championships.
Despite having never made it to the singles main draw, Pistej has bags of WTT Grand Smash experience, playing in the men’s doubles 11 times and another 12 appearances in the mixed doubles. His best appearance at this level was a run to the men’s doubles quarterfinals at Saudi Smash 2024.
His singles experience, however, hadn’t quite lived up to that standard, with his personal best a qualifying round 3 finish at Singapore Smash 2022, the first-ever WTT Grand Smash. After that, he had only made it as far as the second round and was eliminated in the first six times.
But all runs, good or bad, must come to an end, and Pistej finally got the 5,000 USD payout that comes with a Round of 64 appearance by eliminating the No.14 seed Kozul.
Slovak Republic’s Pistej saved two game points to take the opener. Pistej regained the lead after Kozul won Game Two, and the match looked destined to go to a decider when Slovenia’s Kozul went up 7-1 in the fourth. But Pistej got the job done in emphatic style, hitting eight points in a row to make the main draw.
One player who could seriously rock the boat in the women’s singles main draw is China’s Zhu Sibing, who navigated all three of her qualifying matches without dropping a game, beating Lam Yee Lok in Saturday night’s match 11-5, 11-9, 11-4.
Sibing, 26, shot up the world rankings 39 places to World No.95 last month by going through the qualifying rounds of WTT Star Contender Astana 2026 and then beating Adriana Diaz 3-2 in the round of 32.
With a great run of form behind her and full of confidence after beating a Top 20 player, don’t be surprised if Sibing brings more upsets to Shougang Park.
In the final round of qualifying matches, Han Feier was the only one of six Chinese female players not to make the main draw, and that’s because she faced teammate Fan Shuhan.
Shuhan’s 14-12, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9 win means 16 Chinese players will feature in the women’s singles main draw, and one of them is Liu Ziling, a 15-year-old rising star who beat Zauresh Akasheva 12-10, 15-13, 11-4.
