It was just a matter of time. Brazil's Bruna Takahashi (pictured) and Melanie Diaz of Puerto Rico, two of the top table tennis players in the western hemisphere, were destined to clash again. Yesterday, we relived the dramatic finish to the 2019 Pan American Games women's team final. In the deciding match, Takahashi squandered four match points when leading two games to nil, only to have Diaz rally to win three straight games and the championship for Puerto Rico. Today, as fate would have it, both players are seeded in the main draw of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Star Contender tournament in Doha, Qatar. With such a history between the two, drama was a foregone conclusion. Takahashi took the early lead with a 12-10 first game. Diaz, no stranger to playing with a deficit, promptly pulled ahead, two games to one. In the fourth, leading 10-8 with the serve, Diaz appeared well positioned to extinguish Takahashi's bid for revenge. This time, however, it was Diaz who let multiple match points slip away. Four points later, Takahashi had squared the match, two-all. Her confidence surging, Takahashi repeatedly seized the initiative with a deadly backhand banana flick of any short ball. Diaz kept it close but could not close the gap. Takahashi, leading 7-6, once again closed the game with four straight points to secure her vengeance and the match. Diaz, defeated, now turns her attention to rooting for her sister and doubles partner Adriana, who takes on Singapore's Yu Mengyu tomorrow in the round of 32. Takahashi, with a huge personal score settled, must now train her focus on Bernadette Szocs of Romania, her next opponent. If both keep up their winning ways, Takahashi could meet Adriana Diaz in the semifinals. (Incidentally, and with a tip of the hat to James Brown, "O Grande Retorno" means "The Big Payback" in Portuguese.)

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