Yup, it was too close for comfort for Shi Yuqi, at one rally, SYQ gave Kodai Naraoka a thumbs up for an excellent exchange of shots, especially the last one that caught him off-guard.
In the end, SYQ at 18-19 down in the decider was sort of gifted two points when KN twice netted his drop shots before SYQ cleverly played a quick push to the back on KN's return of serve instead of net to net dribble to score the winning matchpoint.
Though this is SYQ 's second match wins in as many meetings, both were hard-fought encounters that tested each other's limit, the more so when SYQ is just back from a yearlong hiatus and sometimes showed signs of fatigue.
Even so, I must highly commend Kodai Naraoka's performance so far in recent months, and he's still only 21 years old. In fact, he's improved so much,particularly his consistency in shotmaking, his remarkable stamina, and his reading of the game is such that , I daresay,any top 10/20 opponent who is somewhat off-the-boil and/or a little fatigued than usual will more likely than not come a cropper at his hands. Nay,I will even go further and say, he will be a worthy successor to Kento Momota one day, more than Kenta Nishimoto, Kanta Tsuneyama or Koki Watanabe could.
