In the Men’s Doubles Event at the European Under 21 Championships we saw the scenario from the Women’s Doubles repeated. Reigning champions exited the venue one round short of medal rostrum. In the quarterfinal of Hugo DESCHAMPS and Thibault PORET of France overcame title holders Ivor BAN of Croatia and Csaba ANDRAS of Hungary (-10 8 7 -6 2)
“In such close matches it is important to stay calm and focused and we did it especially in nerves wrecking fifth game. We lost fourth game but we did not let affect our game ” said PORET.
PORET and DESCHAMPS won silver medal at the European Youth Championships in Under 19 category.
“We also played at the French nationals ” said DESCHAMPS.”This was so far hardest match for us in Sarajevo.”
In the semi final they will meet Iulian CHIRITA and Andrei Teodor ISTRATE of Romania who overcame Milosz REDZIMSKI and Mateusz ZALEWSKI of Poland in straight games (8 8 8).
“We were very calm. We did not play under pressure especially since we were confident after very important win in previous round. We managed to beat VILARDELL and GOLDIR from Spain pairings with very difficult style. We came back from losing second game to win third 11:9 and in fourth we were down 7:10 to win 12:10. It gave us confidence ” said ISTRATE.
CHIRITA was ready for some jokes after the match and he said laughing:”We won because Teodor was not so agitated.
However in more serious tone he continued:”It was not so easy to beat Polish pairings as the results predicts. It was very close and we played point for point.”
Romania will have another representative in the semi final. Eduard IONESCU and Darius MOVILEANU of Romania overcame John OYEBODE of Italy and Borgar HAUG of Norway (-15 9 10 8). They will meet Maciej KUBIK and Samuel KULCZYCKI of Poland who beat Ondrej KVETON and Radim MORAVEK of Czechia (7 -8 1 8).
“We were very consistent with our game which is important for doubles. Of course the service and receive game worked well for us today. “
