{"id":7536,"date":"2026-01-03T09:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=7536"},"modified":"2026-01-03T09:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:05:23","slug":"sora-seeks-to-soar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/sora-seeks-to-soar\/","title":{"rendered":"Sora seeks to soar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One of table tennis\u2019s hottest young prospects, Sora Matsushima, will be looking to build on a groundbreaking 2025 with success with WTT Champions Doha 2026 at the Lusail Sports Arena from January 7-11.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matsushima first featured in WTT Grand Smash and WTT Champions events in 2024, but only made it as far as the quarterfinals once, making it to the last eight at WTT Champions Frankfurt.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But after reaching back-to-back Men\u2019s Singles quarterfinals at China Smash last year and then WTT Star Contender London, Matsushima grabbed the world\u2019s attention by finishing as runner-up at WTT Champions Montpellier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His run to the final included two impressive 4-1 wins over Simon Gauzy and Jang Woojin, before losing 4-0 to Truls Moregard in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking to build on his recent success, Matsushima returned to WTT Champions Frankfurt with a score to settle.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The now 18-year-old blitzed through the opening rounds as his first three opponents all failed to win a game against the left-hander.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the semifinal, Matsushima took the opening game against Denmark\u2019s Anders Lind, only to quickly find himself trailing 1-2. But Sora then turned on the style, blowing his opponent off the table with stunning 11-1, 11-8 and 11-2 wins to book his second final in as many WTT Champions events.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dang Qiu vs Sora Matsushima | MS Final | #WTTFrankfurt 2025\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/38X-Om2CnTk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The championship match saw Matsushima come up against the event\u2019s No.8 seed, Dang Qiu from Germany. Matsushima took the first two games before Dang pulled one back, setting up a wild third that had spectators on the edge of their seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dang stormed to a 5-9 lead, but Matsushima then scored five points before failing to convert Game Point. Dang then got Game Point opportunities of his own at 10-11, and 11-12 before Matsushima was unable to take two of his own.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dang then watched his third and fourth attempts at game point scuppered by the Japanese before Matsushima eventually took it 18-16. With the wind well and truly in his sails, Matsushima won the final game 11-9 and took home his first WTT Champions men\u2019s singles title.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Matsushima had a 2025 that went from strength to strength. The Japanese paddler started the year by winning the WTT Star Contender Doha 2025 mixed doubles title, then went straight into WTT Contender Muscat 2025, this time taking the men\u2019s doubles crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His first Men\u2019s Singles triumph came at WTT Contender Taiyuan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With his first WTT Champions title secured, Matsushima heads to Doha as the event\u2019s No.8 seed and will be aiming to start 2026 with a bang.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of table tennis\u2019s hottest young prospects, Sora Matsushima, will be looking to build on a groundbreaking 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-7536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-table-tennis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.jpeg",1000,660,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-300x198.jpeg",300,198,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-768x507.jpeg",640,423,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.jpeg",640,422,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.jpeg",1000,660,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.jpeg",1000,660,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-825x575.jpeg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-590x410.jpeg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/newsbeat\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7538,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7536\/revisions\/7538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}