Although known to be extremely polite and well-mannered Dang QIU did not give any birthday gifts to the Portuguese player Tiago APOLONIA on his 38th birthday. On the second day of play in the Round of 64 Dang QIU lost the first game 2:11 to the 2015 European Championship bronze medalist after a nervous start but then significantly improved his performance winning the next four games deservedly with 11-3 11-2 11-6 12-10. With this world-class performance Germany’s most consistent player of the last two years improved his international record against APOLONIA to 7:0. He had only lost to APOLONIA twice in the Bundesliga.
Olympic debutant Dang QIU celebrated his victory with a raised fist and expressed great satisfaction with his first singles match. He quickly overcame the poor start:
“2-11 was not an optimal Olympic start but APOLONIA played well too. I knew he would come out fighting here. I had to raise my level extremely and played great so I handled the 2-11 pretty well.”
Dang QIU had already learned from a prominent source that initial tension and nervousness need to be overcome at the Olympics:
“Dima OVTCHAROV told me: Eventually you shake off the nervousness. Once I’m moving the engine hopefully runs and then only the gameplay needs to work. For me that’s the most important thing: When the gameplay works I have a lot of confidence in my game and then opponents need to play at a high level to beat me. This certainty has given me a lot of confidence over the past few years and I hope it will be the same at the Olympics.”
Now QIU will play Kazakh Kirill GERASSIMENKO today at 8 PM.
The fantastic but extremely loud atmosphere in the hall created by the parallel match of Frenchman Alexis LEBRUN was taken in stride by Dang QIU. It only partially influenced his game:
“You couldn’t hear the ball hit anymore. You couldn’t hear anything. But somehow that’s also awesome I have to say. That’s just the Olympic feeling and it’s fun. Especially when you win it’s fun. The LEBRUN brothers have worked just as hard for this and deserve every victory lap they can take.”
It was a good day for the LEBRUN brothers in Paris. Alexis LEBRUN raced into the round of 32 of the Men’s Singles with a speedy 4-0 (11-6 11-5 11-6 11-6) win over Santiago LORENZO. Alexis follows his brother Felix into the round of 32; he clocked his win in at 26 minutes two minutes faster than Felix’s match.
It took Felix LEBRUN less than 30 minutes to dispatch Harmeet DESAI securing his place in the round of 32 with a straight games win (11-8 11-8 11-6 11-8). It was a dream Olympic debut for the teenager and World No.5 but he will now be focused on keeping the show going. Next up for Felix LEBRUN is Sweden’s Anton KALLBERG.
In women’s singles World No.75 Hana MATELOVA of the Czech Republic beat World No.15 Xiaoxin YANG of Monaco in six games (15-13 11-2 8-11 6-11 11-5 11-7). Next up for MATELOVA is a showdown with Dutch star Britt EERLAND in the round of 32.
World No.74 only 17 years old Milosz REDZIMSKI of Poland reached the Round of 32 after his victory over Mohamed EL-BEIALI of Egypt ranked at position No.47.
