The beginning of the Men’s Singles Event at the European Olympic Singles Qualification in Guimaraes proved there are no safe matches for the favorites.
The upsets started from Group A. Alvaro ROBLES of Spain beat Ioannis SGOUROPOULOS of Greece but suffered by the hands of third seed in the Group Belarus Aleksandr KHANIN. KHANIN also proved too strong for Latvia’s Olegs KARTUZOVS. With two wins he secured top of the standings in the Group at the end of the day.
In Group B the highest ranked player on the duty in the Group phase Paul DRINKHALL of Great Britain finished the day unbeaten. He overcame Romania’s Rares SIPOS and Turkey’s Ibrahim GUNDUZ.
“I am happy the way I started. I played two good matches; two quite difficult matches against the players with different style and different issues for me. However I managed to stay positive and to find my game in both matches. I am here because I believe I can qualify but lot of players think the same. There are many good players at the tournament and already there were a lot of upsets and I am sure there will be plenty more in next few days ” said DRINKHALL.
Number six seed at the tournament no one in Group C Ovidiu IONESCU of Romania lost to Jesus CANTERO of Spain. Mihai BOBOCICA of Italy finished at the top of the group after day one with wins against IONESCU and Tal ISRAELI of Israel.
“I was 1:3 down against IONESCU and I managed to recover to win. I did not play well because it is very hard to play well against Ovidiu. It was important only to win and I did it and I did not have any doubts it will get harder and harder here ” explained BOBOCICA.
In Group D Jakub DYJAS of Poland failed to justify his rankings against Vladimir SIDORENKO of Russia. Vladislav URSU of Moldova also steal some spotlight by beating another favorite Pavel PLATONOV of Belarus.
Eric GLOD of Luxembourg showed great performance and overcame Samuel WALKER of Great Britain and Alex NAUMI of Finland to reach the top position at the standings in Group F.
In the men’s event phase one consists of 8 groups. The top four seeded players are not playing in the groups but will qualify directly for Stage 2. The winner and the runner up of each of the 8 groups will qualify for Stage 2 together with the 4 seeded players: Daniel HABESOHN of Austria Pavel SIRUCEK of Czech Republic Panagiotis GIONIS of Greece and KOU Lei of Ukraine making a total of 20 players. After Stage 2 starting from the round of 32 both finalists will qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (the final match shall not be played).
The remaining 18 players from Stage 2 will continue into Stage 3 in a direct knock out draw of 32. The two finalists of the Stage 3 K.O. draw will qualify for Tokyo 2020 (the final match shall not be played). In addition the winner of the match between the losers of the Stage 3 semi-finals (men) will qualify for the Olympic Games.
You can see live streaming on https://www.ettu.tv/en-int/partner-player/ettu/ettu.tv
You can see pictures on FLICKR https://www.flickr.com/photos/ettu_official/albums
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ettu_official/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ETTUofficial/
