The TTCL champions play together in China
Frenchmen Benjamin BROSSIER and Antoine HACHARD emerged successfully in the qualification stage of the Men’s Doubles event at the GAC Group 2015 ITTF World Tour China Open in Chengdu. French pairings overcame the Austrian partnership of CHEN Weixing and Robert GARDOS (11-4 11-9 9-11 11-2).
The combination of Portugal’s Marcos FREITAS and Sweden’s Jens LUNDQVIST accounted for Chinese Taipei’s CHUANG Chih-Yuan and SUN Chia-Hung to maintain their progress (10-12 11-7 11-8 12-10).
However the partnership to attract the attention was that of Germany’s Dimitrij OVTCHAROV in liaison with Vladimir SAMSONOV of Belarus; they accounted Chinese Taipei’s HUANG Chien-Tu and YANG Tzu-Yi (11-9 11-8 11-9) to continue their progress to the main draw.
“We play together sometimes in our club in Russia and we have played together at the European Championships before” said Dimitrij OVTCHAROV; both play for the Russian club Fakel Gazproma Orenburg the winners of this year’s European Champions League.“Vladi is an excellent doubles player so it is a pleasure to play with him; it is good to start with a victory in this event it gives me confidence” added Dimitrij OVTCHAROV. “Also it is good to have Jörgen coaching; helped us a lot.”
In the Men’s Singles qualifications currently named at no.142 on the Men’s World Rankings Antoine HACHARD accounted for Korea’s JANG Woojin listed at no.79 (6-11 11-2 12-10 11-9 11-8).
Required to play in the qualification stage of proceedings Britt EERLAND of the Netherlands caused the major upsets in the first round of the Under 21 Women’s Singles events. EERLAND defeated Singapore’s Li Ye the no.3 seed recovering from a two games to nil deficit to record a quite stunning full distance five games success by the very minimal margin (10-12 5-11 11-9 11-8 12-10)
