Balancing acts

Darko Jorgic has clearly no plans of handing in the towel here as the Slovenian has taken the second game (14-12) against Ma Long 14-12 and is pushing the Dragon to keep the match from running away. It may be a tough task as the Chinese has again taken the lead, winning the third game 11-9.

Meanwhile, Liam Pitchford has won two games back to back (11-9, 11-4) to take the lead before Dimitrij Ovtcharov balanced the scoreline with an 11-5 win in the fourth game. Anyone else betting on a seven-game thriller here??

Top seeds lead

In what are the first matches of the day, top seeds Ma Long and Dimitrij Ovtcharov are in the lead against Darko Jorgic and Liam Pitchford respectively.

Ma Long has a opened with a commanding 11-7 win in 10 minutes,while the German needed to squeeze in a 12-10 win in the same time frame. Will the group qualifiers make them blink?

What’s coming your way?

All four semi-finalists will be decided on day two, in the hunt for the gold medal. Here’s a look ahead to the day’s fixture line-up:

Welcome back to #RESTART!

Good morning and welcome to day two of the Dishang 2020 ITTF Men’s World Cup and with it the second stop on the #RESTART series line.

Today’s action sees 16 athletes in Weihai contest the first knockout round of the event. You can read up on the draw here.