Full Match | Bernadette Szocs vs Mima Ito | WS QF |

So here we go, a meeting between two players who've met on several occasions before. Yuto, 23, from Iwata. She was awarded with Iwata City's Citizens' Honor Award for her success at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. They then added a gold post to the front of Iwata City Hall after her accomplishments in Tokyo. I have to build a statue next. But you couldn't say she doesn't deserve one with what she's achieved over the years, Yuto, and still only 23. That's the extraordinary thing, isn't it? I don't know about you, she's one of those players that every time you write her age down when you're making your notes, you double check it because you think, I can't possibly still only be 23. Have a look at this Oh, she's got it! Outrageous point from Yuto. That was exceptional, absolutely exceptional. I couldn't even see Bernie Soch when she hit a shot of such power off screen. But yeah, the fact that she is 23 is crazy, crazy. She's been around the block for years, Yuto. Tried the Chiquita there. It's worth mentioning that she's a short pips player on the backhand side. She tries to hit the ball flatter, can't generate as much topspin or backspin with the short pips, but she can punch just as flat. And that was a nice shot from Bernie Soch there, swooping around the side of the ball with the hook, catching Yuto wide. Been a very vibrant start to the match, hasn't it? I just looked at the scoreboard, I can't believe we're only five points in. And there I was saying we're not going to see many rallies. Well, I guess they have played each other five times before. Yes, and Yuto, the player with the better record, just the one win for Soch. And that was actually the first time they met, wasn't it? It was a long time ago in a junior competition. Yeah, World Junior Champs in Hyderabad. Two of Yuto's four wins have been without reply from Soch. The other two have been settled in a decider. She is a very intriguing player, isn't she, Yuto? She really is. She's a pocket rocket, generates a lot of power for such a short stature player, but it's her racket speed. It's how quickly she looks to end the point. She's a physical player, Yuto. Talk about ending a point. There we go. Interesting hub of a round table one at the moment. It's almost like they expect it to go the distance. It wouldn't be surprising after what we've seen today. It has been a brilliant day of competition, hasn't it? Sensational. Got the tickets worth, haven't they? And I hope you're enjoying it too, wherever you're watching from, whoever you're supporting, however much you've seen so far of this star contender in Bangkok. Thank you so much for your company. I hope you're having a lovely weekend. Holly Hogben here with Fraser Riley alongside me. Hello, everybody. Oh, it's been great, hasn't it? And what a summer of sport with the Olympics, with the Euros, with so much on offer. Wimbledon at the moment too. All of the Americas gripped by the Copa America football as well as, as you say, the European championships taking place. It's an interesting thing, isn't it? Like this event here in Bangkok, the star contender, you've got that warm up feel to the Olympiad, the last opportunities to be in form. Search has said that a medal is what she wants in Paris. She wants to be the first ever Romanian to get onto a table tennis podium. And I think she's more than capable of doing it. She's obviously hugely ambitious. She's broken into the top 10 in her late 20s and she said, OK, fine, I want top five now. That's the next thing. And she actually said, she talked to the Olympic Channel in February, I think it was, she said in an interview with them, I know I can beat the top Chinese players. That doesn't mean I'm better than them. And I thought that's a really interesting distinction to make that her aim is to be better than them, not just to be able to beat them here and there. And the reason that this Olympics coming up is so unpredictable is because we've seen the top Chinese lose at a more regular rate. And that excites people in a sense, because, you know, that you could become an Olympic champion without having to be better, just have to have a better day. Now, who's going to get the first game point? There's the answer. It was a quick one. Surge. Surprised Ito went for that strawberry. That's a very high risk shot. I mean, I guess if you don't buy a ticket, you don't win the raffle, but game point. I get the feeling we could be here quite a while with this one. Now it's going to be Ito's game point. Tomahawk serve of Bernie, so side spinny. Will she go backspin or topspin? She just looked astonished there, didn't she? Bernadette Surge, 12-10. Ito Mima winning the first 12-10. Bernadette Surge from Targu Mures in Transylvania. Beautiful part of Europe. Striking natural landscapes and wonderful cities and towns with the sort of classical architecture that you'd expect from that part of Romania. It's definitely on my bucket list. I've never been, but it almost looks like a fairy tale, certain places there. I had the privilege to attend the Junior World Championships of Rhythmic Gymnastics in Transylvania last year, exactly as you describe it. It's fabulous, just exquisitely beautiful. A lot of her time, of course, has been spent instead in Bremen in Germany. Germany, as I'm sure many of you know, famous for its flourishing table tennis community, incredible league systems, so many clubs. Yeah, lots of fantastic training centres, Dusseldorf, Huxenhausen, just to name a couple. I like this one. Oh, well, Berni Surge trying maybe a little bit of a snake shot, but it didn't quite have the bite on it to sort of send Ito the wrong way there. Bit shallow as well, makes it easier to smash than if it's deep. Nice point construction from Ito, who tested the out and in footwork. What wonderful movement. She's playing well. Only did Surge in this second game. Ito here adjusting her service position, Sakura serve. Beautiful. Just lovely, making Ito move so much laterally. And she made sure, Berni Surge, that she wouldn't get that backhand back, not just by trying to guide it, but by coming in with racket speed and actually countering it cross-court. It was incisive and decisive. Goodbye. See you later, alligator. What about this for Ito? She kind of surprised herself a little bit with that. I mean, she didn't look like she was surprised, but there was a little kind of roll of the eyes at first. Yeah, nice little sequence of points here for Mito Mima. She's taken it back to a one-point game. Suddenly, we find ourselves at six apiece. That 5-2 advantage that Surge enjoyed has disappeared. Bernadette Such struggles to play power flicks and Mima Ito is serving intelligently because of that. That was unusual to see a push-push rally. Berni's obviously surprised Ito. Ito unhappy with herself evidently over the last couple of points. She's taking a moment there to be alone with her thoughts. She might feel, Ito Mima, that three points have just flown by there. They're both wavering under the pressure a bit more now. You wonder if that's partly because of the fact that Chen Xintong is out and they both sense the opportunity even more so. We talked about that yesterday, didn't we, that sometimes people are at their most vulnerable when the chance to win actually appears. Yeah. It's a nervy feel to the conclusion of this game. Surge has got three game points. Dominating Ito behind serves here. And that is the game for the Romanian player. So, we are level at one apiece. Concludes everything. So, this is where we find ourselves. One apiece, first game. 12-10 to Ito. Second, 11-7 to Surge. Snappy backhands from Ito. Longer serve, slower with backspin. She is crafty. She is cunning, Berni Surge, isn't she? It's one of the things, isn't it, that you encounter when you're looking at any discourse on how to succeed in this wonderful sport. It's the ability to vary what you can do with your serve. Yeah. She's got a lovely angle on the shot before the winner. She's making life a little bit easier for herself. Now, Berni Surge wafts that one away. It was the construction leading up to it. Whoa! Well, I mean, it's a good effort. It's a great effort. I was not far away, but I mean, she would have been in trouble regardless. A bit of fortune for Ito. And I have to say, when you see a player hurl themselves at a ball like that, just a matter of weeks away from the start of the Olympic Games, you think, please don't do anything that could jeopardise yourself there. Wouldn't that be devastating? Wouldn't that be devastating? God forbid that happens to any of the players here. I mean, we saw it with Han Ying, didn't we? So upsetting for the world's best chopper who returned, just tried to test out whether she was fit enough to play the Olympics after getting injured against Jin Jihee in Doha and another rupture. And that was it for her here. That's the dark side of sport. Every Olympic Games has surrounding it the stories of those whose prospects were derailed either with competition injuries, with training injuries. I mean, there was a British cyclist recently who tripped over a garden step and ruptured ligaments, tore ligaments from the bone and is having to miss Paris 2024 simply by taking a tumble in her own backyard. I can't imagine, can you? No. But actually, when you talk to a lot of elite athletes in different sports, they often say that those things happen because they're when you're least expecting it, not when you're protecting your body against injury naturally. So you have to understand your own boundaries in a sense, don't you? And that's the line, that's the fine line, dancing between caution and carelessness. Because, yes, again, elite athletes say you never win anything through being cautious the whole time, through playing within yourself. That's why we love sport, isn't it? It's the drama of it. And this is a dramatic match. It's very hard to see a clear path through to the conclusion at the moment. That was good movement to the ball from Serge. Look how horizontal her bat was when she came over that. Such an exaggerated movement from the European. Very different from the silhouette of an Asian player. She's a really good reader and it was the anticipation there that made the shot possible. One of the most fascinating things about the player we're looking at there is that she started the year just outside the top 10. Now she's nine in the world. We'll come back to that after this super bit of work of the ball from Ito. A year ago, just into the top 20. Two years ago, just inside the top 30. I mean, she's a wonderful player, technically, that is clear. But it's what's inside the head that's the crucial thing, isn't it, with Serge? The mentality. She's going to have that mentality tested here because Ito is pressurizing. Well placed push into the corner. Focusing so much on the placement there, didn't need a big shot to win it. She fully respects how dangerous Ito is in the open play. Can Bernie win the rally within three or four shots? That's the question. I've noticed sometimes when Ito's in front, she tries to do a little bit too much to finish it. The same happens when she's tight. Do you remember that strawberry flick that she tried in the first game? That's an example of that. So she's got to keep her cool here and try and win the point as simply as she can, Ito. The net cord does not favor her and a reaction of real irritation as Serge now has a game point. Now it's a Romanian player who just slaps her thighs in frustration. Second game point. That's so quick from Ito. Look how she pounces here, comes in over the shallow ball with that chicken wing forehand. I mean, the arm is so close to the body. Extraordinary dexterity, isn't it? Oh, that is absolutely loaded from Ito. She now has the game point having saved two from the Romanian. Yes, that's the game for Ito Mima. She's had a slightly befuddled look on her face there, Ito Mima, and she was chuntering away to herself. Really did generate some tight angles there. You can see the hunger in Ito to win this. Her drive and this signifies complete respect for the level of her opponent. Record books tell us that she's likely to be successful because she has at senior level won every encounter with Serge. It's just that one junior win that the Romanian player has enjoyed. Something exciting is happening over on one of the other tables. You can, of course, follow that on the WTT YouTube channel and watch it all later on. Real increasing of intensity today. It is a Saturday after all. Bigger crowds. The city of Bangkok will be gearing itself up pretty soon for the Sala Bhuja festival, which takes place on the full moon in the wet season in July. Later on in the month, big celebration in this part of the world. Crafty and ritualistic, isn't she, Ito? That's an interesting feature of her game, isn't it? The way she sets herself for the serve. Similar to a lot of the Japanese. Hirano as well almost stares at the ball like it's going to tell her who's the fairest of them all. Didn't she create that space so well down the side of the table? Time out has just been invoked by Bernadette Serge. She's denying. That was in four. She won 11-6, 11-7 in the last couple of games. And she won the last two games of her round of 16 meeting with Ju Chonghui. 11-6, 11-6. So she's really motored towards the conclusion. She might be doing the same here. Or she might not be. Well, after not that point, but the one before, but she snatched. It looked like she was saying to herself, look, just because you're serving well doesn't mean that you should just try and bang it too often. She's just struggled to gaze the percentage and lost a little bit of confidence here, Ito. Isn't it remarkable how quickly things can change? You're only ever a thought away. And that's why we see so many switches in momentum. They say it, don't they, elite athletes? Thinking exactly the right amount is a very fine balance. Not getting lost in over-complicating things. I don't think you can teach a player that specific quality. Body language from Ito is a frustrated athlete suddenly. She was 6-3 ahead and Search has timed the timeout spot on. Gosh, that caught Search by surprise. That was a tasty parallel, unparalleled in the end. But that was clever because she saw Search go towards the exposed side and went right back. And then the strawberry push helps her win that one. And Ito just so cross after that because she got herself into a position of small control, slight control, not decisive control. But she's nearly found her way through this match. Huge serve coming up for the number five seed. A bit of debate about that one. And she's apologizing, Ito, because it was her point. And she has got match point. No. She survives. She survives. And that's especially impressive. She faced an edge ball in the last point. Now juicing game four. She's got to save another match point. The Romanian. Ito going for the big finisher. Bernadette Sot is playing well with her back and she's keeping it slow and spinny. That's difficult for Ito to hit flat. Ito plays it long. Search has a game point. Now this is fascinating because in the previous game, Search had two opportunities to win the game and then conceded. Is it going to go the other way here? Oh no. Agonizing moment for Bernadette Search. Every game that's gone to juice Ito's won. Is it going to happen again? It may well do. It's a third match point for Ito Mima. Ito celebrates a huge win.