Croatia’s pairings reached gold
Ema MARN and Andrea PAVLOVIC of Croatia clinched the gold medal at the European Youth Championships in Bratislava. In the final of the Cadet Girls Doubles Event they overcame Maria TAYLAKOVA of Russia and Andreea DRAGOMAN of Romania 3:1 (6 -11 10 10).
“I still can not believe we won the title. After today’s semi final when we failed to produce the game at the highest level we succeeded in the ultimate stage ” said Ema MARN.
PAVLOVIC added that the tactic was very important.
“We controlled the situation with the good attacks. The most difficult match for us was the semi final but after we won that our confidence rose.”
In the penultimate stage MARN and PAVLOVIC exceeded the rankings and beat the top seeds Maria TAYLAKOVA of Russia and Andreea DRAGOMAN of Romania 3:1 (-10 8 8 9).
“I did not believe we could win this but at the end I am not very happy with my performance. I should put more first balls on the table. My receive of service was not very good ” said Ema.
Andrea was not that unhappy.
“We are playing together for a two years and it was great advantage against combination of Russia’s and Romania’s player. They needed little more matches together ” said PAVLOVIC and added that the Croatian pairings already won the silver medal at the Slovakia and Croatia Open whilst in Italy they were third.
The doubles paired for European championships PLAIAN and RUB worked perfectly despite the short period of existence. In semis they overcame Katarzyna WEGRZYN and Anna WEGRZYN of Poland 3:0 (8 7 7).
“We are very compatible. PLAIAN is a very good player; when I made mistake she can easily “cover” it ” explained RUB.
PLAIAN added: ”Against Polish pairings the start was very important. It gave us the confidence.”
CADET GIRLS DOUBLES EVENT
Gold medal
Ema MARN and Andrea PAVLOVIC of Croatia
Silver medal
Tania PLAIAN Romania and Elina RUB of Russia
Bronze medal
Katarzyna WEGRZYN and Anna WEGRZYN of Poland
Maria TAYLAKOVA of Russia and Andreea DRAGOMAN of Romania
