Belarus Vladimir SAMSONOV was the major casualty in the opening round of the Men’s Singles event at the GAC Group 2014 ITTF World Tour Czech Open (Major) in Olomouc. Kristian KARLSSON of Sweden has inflicted the first ever ITTF World Tour 1st round defe
Belarus Vladimir SAMSONOV was the major casualty in the opening round of the Men’s Singles event at the GAC Group 2014 ITTF World Tour Czech Open (Major) in Olomouc. Kristian KARLSSON of Sweden has inflicted the first ever ITTF World Tour 1st round defeat to SAMSONOV the no.1 seed and the winner the previous week on home soil in Belarus. Swede has been required to compete in preliminary rounds.
However KARLSSON did not celebrate for long. In Round of 32 Alexey SMIRNOV of Russia beat 23 year-old. Par GERELL of Sweden progressed further as well as Tiago APOLONIA of Portugal.
Another qualifier Lubomir PISTEJ of Slovakia beat Joao MONTEIRO of Portugal to progress to the second round. Simon GAUZY of France beat seed no. 6 Kenta MATSUDARIA of Japan to extend the list of favorites who exited earlier then their rankings predicted. GAUZY moved even further. He overcame Kazuhiro CHAN of Japan to join the top 16 players in Czech Republic.
On her way to the Round of 16 in Women’s Singles Event Sabine WINTER of Germany accounted for Viktoria PAVLOVICH of Belarus. Another Germany’s player Petrissa SOLJA also beat former European Champion Ruta PASKAUSKIENE of Lithuania to book her place in the Round of 16. Elizabeta SAMARA of Romania is safely through after duel against Renata STRBIKOVA of Czech Republic. Same for Austria’s LIU Jia and Dutch player LI JIe. WU Jiaduo of Germany overcame LI Jiao of Netherlands.
At the lower half of the draw seeded no. two HAN Ying of Germany is out. Austria’s Amelie SOLJA succeeded in five games.
