A member of Australia’s gold medal winning team earlier in the week, on the concluding day of play, Saturday 9th September, at the 2023 ITTF-Oceania Senior and Youth Championships in Townsville, Aditya Sareen wrote his name indelibly into the history books of sport.
He won the men’s singles title and in so doing at 15 years and 134 days old became the youngest player ever to achieve the feat, in fact the youngest ever in the history of any continental championships!
Facing teammates, at the semi-final stage he beat Xavier Dixon (11-5, 11-8, 12-10, 13-11), before accounting for Finn Luu (10-12, 11-8, 12-10, 11-7, 4-11, 11-3) to seal the title.
Notably, Fin Luu was very much a player in form, in the penultimate round he had ended the hopes of the defending champion, Nicholas Lum (9-11, 18-16, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9, 11-2).
Success for Aditya Sareen and a second success on the last day of action against Finn Luu; earlier they had met in the under 19 men’s singles final, Aditya Sareen recovering from a two games to nil deficit to secure victory (8-11, 7-11, 12-10, 11-1, 11-6, 11-8).
Meanwhile, in the counterpart women’s singles event, Yangzi Liu retained the title won one year ago in Melbourne.
Furthermore, at no stage of the proceedings did she surrender a single game; Australian colleagues her adversaries, at the semi-final stage she beat Jian Fang Lay (12-10, 11-6, 11-9, 11-5) prior to overcoming Minhyung Jee (11-8, 11-6, 12-10, 11-6) to secure the top prize.
Gold for Aditya Sareen and Yangzi Liu when apart but not when together! They were beaten in the mixed doubles final by Finn Luu and Jian Fang Lay (11-4, 14-12, 11-9).