Women’s Teams Event European Games 2019 Minsk
The day 6 of the competition in the Tennis Olympic center at he European Games 2019 in Minsk started with the Round one in the Women’s Teams Event. Top 4 seeds had morning off whilst eight teams fought for the four remaining places in the quarterfinals.
Host nation had a very tough draw. They faced Netherlands. Daria TRIGOLOS and Nadezhda BOGDANOVA lead by Viktoria PAVLOVICH failed to halt the progress of LI Jie Kim VERMAAS and Britt EERLAND
“It was hard to play in front of Belarus crowd. They were very enthusiastic. All three matches were close started with the doubles. I played with Britt EERLAND and it was tough start. Viktoria also had a chance against LI Jie but in finish we were better ” said Kim VERMAAS.
Ukraine’s Margaryta PESOTSKA Tetyana BILENKO and Hanna GAPONOVA prevailed against Luxembourg’s NI Xia Lian Danielle KONSBRUCK and Sarah DE NUTTE 3-1. Only NI overcame GAPONOVA. Spain also prevailed in for matches. Pairings Sofia ZHANG XUAN and Galia DVORAK overcame Filippa BERGAND and Matilda EKHOLM but after that Sweden took control. Linda BERGSTROM overcame Maria XIAO YAO. EKHOLM overcame DVORAK and BERGAND prevailed against XIAO.
“I waited few days here to play practicing with girls only. However when I started it was less difficult then I thought it would be. I was not under pressure ” said BERGAND.
Poland prevailed against Russia in straight matches. Natalia BAYOR Natalia PARTYKA and LI Qian played against Olga VOROBEVA Yana NOSKOVA and Polina MIKHAILOVA.
“It was much harder than the score predicts. In the last match NOSKOVA had two match balls against me. She was so fast. I had to change my style to adopt my game. I had to slow her down. I changed my service put first spin to the middle in order to make game less quick ” said Natalia PARTYKA.
