Morning program at the opening day at the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Championships in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo already brought few upsets. Russia seeded no. 10 suffered by the hand of players from Poland the team that occupies the position no. 1
Morning program at the opening day at the ZEN-NOH 2014 World Team Championships in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo already brought few upsets. Russia seeded no. 10 suffered by the hand of players from Poland the team that occupies the position no. 18 at the seeding.
It was not the defeat that made such big surprise but the final outcome did it – 3:0. Alexander SHIBAEV World’s no 34 suffered by the hands of Robert FLORAS currently ranked at position no. 111. FLORAS was stretched to full distance and in the battle of epic proportions prevailed (15:17 10:12 12:10 11:6 10:12).
After the Russia’s first player lost his match against third in Polish outfit the doors were wide open. Danijel GORAK seized the opportunity and overcame Alexey LIVENTSOV despite the slight advantage that his adversary has at the rankings – GORAK is 89th player whilst LIVENTSOV is placed at position no. 71. WANG Zengyi no. 77 beat Kirill SKACHKOV worlds no. 53 to seal the match.
Top seeds China secured first victory at the tournament against Brazil whilst Austria prevailed against Serbia. After a 12-month break Aleksandar KARAKASEVIC wore the national jersey again but he suffered on his come back. KARAKASEVIC was 2:1 up in games and had 7:1 before Daniel HABESOHN cleared the danger. With very good Robert GARDOS Austria concluded the day with the victory.
Seeded no. two Germany also saved some energy today with the 3:0 victory over Singapore. Timo BOLL beat GAO Ning at the opening. “I took GAO Ning very seriously because we all have lost against him the last time. If you beat him that’s half the battle won for your team. I was very focused from the beginning but had some bad luck in the 1st game. If you have to take 5 balls from the edge I think you can call it bad luck. But in the 3rd game I was behind 4-8 and won – so the good luck worked for both of us. The win over Singapore was a good first step but we still have a long way to go. We are ready to work a lot and hard here in Tokyo”.
Dimitrij OVTCHAROV beat YANG Zi 3-0 (8 6 9) and on his premiere Steffen MENGEL succeeded against CHEW Zhe Yu Clarence 3:1 (9 -9 4 8) “Dima and Timo made it easier for me. I entered the box when we were already 2-0 in the lead and I knew that even if I lost there were still those two stars behind me to score one last point if necessary. Nevertheless it was not easy to get in for me. It’s my first major team tournament also at European Championships I was not yet on the team. I’m happy just to be here as part of such a great team “ stressed MENGEL.
