European Youth Championships | 16 Jul 2015
France unbeaten since Ostrava 2013
In 10 years juniors only failed to reach the top twice
French Junior Boys are unbeaten at the European Youth Championships since 2013 and in past decade they won 8 titles. They preserved their status at the European Youth Championships in Bratislava. At the final hurdle they succeeded against Sweden.
They made the clean record o their way to the final as well. Duels against England, Russia and Poland finished in straight matches.
“Sweden was actually the first team on our way to the title with player who can beat both Can AKKUZU and Alexandre CASSIN. Despite that fact, I was sure in our victory. He could win two points, but the other Swedish players are lower ranked then our boys, ” said French Coach David JOHNSTON.
But David JOHNSTON admitted, at the first place, that he did not expect Sweden in the final at all.
“During the semi final contest between Sweden and Slovenia, I was sure Slovenia will prevailed. Darko JORGIC played very good. He should win the match against KALLBERG. It will be unpleasant situation for us because JORGIC previously managed to beat both AKKUZU and CASSIN.”
In the opening match of the final, Europe’s player no. one Anton KALLBERG overcame Can AKKUZU as the rankings predicted.
“His service game is very dangerous.”
Not only KALLBERG, but also Simon SODERLUND showed good performance.
“In the opening set he played very good against Alexandre CASSIN, he was 10:7 in the lead, before he lost by narrow margin. The same situation we had in next match when Malte MOREGARDH had advantage over Joe SEYFRIED in early stages. In both cases as the game went on the quality of French players prevailed, but players from Sweden proved very dangerous. Generally all the teams play relaxed against us, because they got nothing to lose.“
Today the matches in singles started.
“With such strong line up we expect the medal in individual competition too. Last year we won most prestige titles in Teams and in Singles, let’s hope that we will add the medal in doubles this time. AKKUZU and CASSIN will play in doubles, but they will not play in mixed doubles. It is very long tournament and they wanted to save some energy.”
