Former Otago junior Nathan Xu had to dig deep to win the Otago Open men’s singles on Saturday.
Xu, now based in Auckland, beat Alfred Dela-Pena (Waitemata) in an epic battle at the Edgar Centre.
A crowd of about 120 stayed deep into the night as the pair went to battle on the main table.
The seesaw match featured both players back from the table and covering extreme distances as they powered back top spin after top spin.
Dela-Pena won the first game 11-8, Xu took the second 11-9 and Dela-Pena won the third 13-11.
Xu stayed composed for the rest of the match and executed his tactics well, finishing 11-3, 11-6, 11-9 to claim a hard-earned 4-2 win.
Earlier, Dela-Pena beat Dean Shu (Auckland) in a thrilling semifinal.
Shu, who recently spent three weeks training in Spain, fought back from two games to level the match at 2-2, before Dela-Pena got into a rhythm and claimed the final two games.
Xu beat Alex Liu Cao (Auckland) 4-2 in the other semifinal.
It featured some exciting rallies, which Xu dominated. Liu Cao was unable to penetrate Xu’s defence, and Xu was able to turn that into offence.
The women’s final was a one-sided affair.
Gina Liu (Canterbury) was in good form, and her consistent and relentless attack proved too much for Otago’s Jill Liu.
Jill Liu managed to play some superb shots but could not sustain it enough to build consistent pressure, and she was beaten 4-0.
Gina Liu and Kris Alisch claimed the women’s doubles title with a comfortable victory over Catherine Fogarty and Abbey Webb.
The men’s doubles final was a tight affair, Xu and Otago veteran Ben Duffy playing well tactically to beat the double left-handed Waitemata pairing of Dela-Pena and Kelsey Amor.
Duffy and Gina Liu combined to win the open mixed doubles against Dela-Pena and Southland’s Gemma Buzzard in a close match.
