Top seed Jong Eub Han held his nerve to secure a come-from-behind victory in the open men's final of the Otago Open over the weekend.
Cantabrian Han, who was undefeated throughout the tournament, came back from a 3-2 deficit to beat second seed Ye-Sien Lin, also from Canterbury, 4-3 at the Edgar Centre on Saturday.
After taking the first two games, Han went down 5-11, 11-13, 8-11 in the next three to relinquish the lead and find himself on the brink of defeat.
But he held his composure to win the next two games 13-11, 11-9 in a closely-fought contest which was a fitting finale to a competitive tournament.
Han also came back from a first-game loss to beat Australian Sharad Pandit 4-1 in his semifinal.
Lin defeated Auckland's Victor Ma 4-1 in the other semifinal.
Han came through two round-robin matches and four knockout matches unscathed to win the tournament.
Otago Table Tennis Association director of coaching and development Ben Duffy also took to the table and reached the quarterfinals before he was defeated by Lin.
Otago's Jill Liu gave the home crowd something to cheer about when she beat Auckland's Sarah Sandley 4-3 to win the final of the open women's section.
Liu, who was unbeaten in three round-robin matches and three knockout matches, came back from a 2-1 deficit to win three of the next four games and take the title.
Kelsey Amor and Victor Pollett beat Ben Duffy and Pandit 3-2 to win the open men's doubles. Debbie Garrett and Holly Wu won the open women's doubles.
