Last year’s runners-up Romania overcame Slovakia in their morning clash for a place in the penultimate stage of the Under 19 Girls event at the ORLEN European Youth Championships. Ioana SINGEORZAN gave her teammates a dream start with a win over Adriana ILLASOVA and Elena ZAHARIA continued in the same style against Eliska STULLEROVA.
“We are getting closer to our goal which is always gold ” said ZAHARIA. “So far everything is going according to plan and we are happy that Bianca MEI ROSU managed to beat Dominika WILTSCHKOVA in a very close match. Mentally it is very important that she won such a difficult match.”
Being a member of a team with such immense tradition is a great honor and confirmation but it also brings great pressure. MEI ROSU who joined the Under 19 team this year managed to cope with the pressure.
“I had to start thinking like a junior. It was much easier in the group stage where I won my matches against Spain Sweden and Belgium but I faced much bigger difficulties entering the knockout stage. I lost against Italy’s MORETTI and it was important for my confidence to win this match against WILTSCHKOVA ” said MEI ROSU.
In the next round Romania will meet France who came back from the verge of defeat against Portugal. Ines MATOS and Matilde PINTO beat Agathe AVEZOU and Clea DE STOPPELEIRE and Mariana SANTA COMBA had a 2-1 lead against Elise PUJOL when the pendulum swung in favor of France. PUJOL won 2-3 and Clea and Agathe beat MATOS and PINTO.
“It was so hard to recover but our coach managed to calm us down. He told us it’s not a problem and that we have to believe in ourselves. The key to our success was our team spirit and good motivation. In addition we have a lot of variety in our game with aggressive players defenders and more ” said AVEZOU.
Germany overcame Ukraine in straight matches. Mia GRESEL Naomi PRANJKOVIC and Lea LACHENMAYER lost only one game on their way to the semifinals.
“It was much closer than the result suggests. Ukraine’s players are very dangerous. However Mia gave us a very good start with a victory over Iolanta YEVTODII. That took off most of the pressure from the team. She was very calm. Because of that I started against Veronika MATIUNINA with less pressure tactically well ” said PRANJKOVIC.
Germany will clash with the title holders Poland in the duel for a place in the final. The host nation overcame Bulgaria led by the very dangerous Zuzanna WIELGOS who won both her matches today. WIELGOS beat both Viktoria PERSOVA and Tsvetlana GEORGIEVA.
“We were down 0-1 when I entered but I didn’t feel the pressure against Viktoria ” said WIELGOS who won her match in straight games. “Against Tsvetlana it was the same. We met last year in the quarterfinals of the European Championships and I beat her 4-1 in the singles.”
