Ma Zhenzhao is not a one-hit wonder

When Ma Zhenzhao got a silver medal in the U78kg division at the Tashkent World Championships, in fact many people had never heard of her before. The natural question then was whether her silver medal was a fluke. After all, prior to that, she had not had any success in the IJF World Circuit. No Grand Slam or Grand Prix to her name. But there she was, it the final of the World Championships.

Many wondered if she will ever reach such heights again. Her performance at the just-concluded Abu Dhabi Grand Slam indicates there's more gold to come from this new star.

Ma was impressive in Abu Dhabi. She won her first fight, against Teresa Zenker of Germany with a soto-makikomi followed immediately with a hold-down.

Her second match, against Loriana Kuka of Kosovo involved an interesting pair of techniques. First, she countered her opponent with uchimata-sukashi. Then she threw her with uchimata for waza-ari-awasete-ippon.

She followed that up with an impressive semifinal match where she countered a Georgian pick-up attempt by Inbar Lanir of Israel and proceeded to pin her for ippon.

But Ma saved the best for last. In her final, against Natalie Powell of Great Britain, she unleashed a massive kosoto into ura-nage for ippon.

And with that, she answered the question of whether her good results in the World's was a fluke. It clearly was not. This category has a new top contender in Ma.