29th Finlandia Open
The 29th Finlandia Open is underway at the Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja. Team competition started on Thursday and was completed on Friday when Russia and India &Venezuela mixed team met in the men’s final and the Japan 1 & 2 in the women’s final.
The mixed team Raj MONDAL (India) and Cecilio CORREA (Venezuela) fought vaguely but the Russians took a 2-0 win. Petr FEDOTOV defeated MONDALI and Nikita ARTEMENKO right after CORREA. Both matches ended 3-1. Bronze was captured by Japan 1 and Russia 3.
In women Saki SEYAMA did it again at this time together with Ayane MORITAN. Seyama won the opening match against Natsumi NAKAHATAN 3-1 but Morita was forced to take full five sets with Miko TOKUNAGA. France and Russia 3 took the bronze medals.
Finlandia Open’s specialty in singles is progressive knockout system which has gathered 100 men and over 70 women to Kisakallio. Benedek OLÁH tries to win Finlandia Open very hard. Benedek opened his matches with a clean 4-0 win over Sweden’s Anton ANDERSSON and in the second Andriy GREBENIUK of Ukraine felt the same fate. The goal is to have a better ranking and take a place in the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
– The last game was not easy because it seems like everyone wants to win me. Against the first seeded you can play freely and so all the ones seem to be doing Oláh said.
Anastasia BURKOVA – seeded 27th – in women’s singles started with bye and then defeated Spain’s Andrea PEREZ 4-1. The third round became a “bomb” when Burkova was beating second seeded Iranian Neda Shahsava 4-0. Burkova is a Russian who has been living in Finland for two years because of studies and can take part in the Finnish Championships in the spring.
Kisakallio is still popular among players and coach as the venues accommodation and food are all in the same complex. Progressive knockout system guarantees a lot of games for everyone as all positions from the first to the last are solved.
