World Championships | 3 Mar 2016

Korea halted Romania's progress to quarters

2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships

 

Romania concluded their journey at the Perfect 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Kuala Lumpur among top 12 teams. In the Round of 16 of the Women's Event they suffered defeat by the hands of DPR Korea in straight matches.

 

“I am so tired. We ha to wait until 1 AM last night to see the outcome of the draw and we were playing first match in the morning. I need a good sleep now,” admitted Elizabeta SAMARA who lost against KIM Song I. “Generally I am not very unhappy with the outcome of the tournament. If I had the chance to choose from Netherlands, South and North Korea, our today’s adversary will be the last choice, but at the end we met our goal. We wanted to go out from the Group to the main draw and we succeed.”

 

SAMARA was also satisfied with her performance in Malaysia.

 

“Yesterday I play very well against Hungary; I had two match balls against Taipei…Under the present circumstances it all ended well. We are struggling with the conditions here. It is very windy and you do not know where the ball will go. In addition you do not know against whom you are going to play. A lot of players are “hiding” here. Everybody calculate the points, and everything is under influence of Olympics rankings. I am so anxious to reach the month of May, to see the final rankings and to have some break. I do not want to calculate. I had came to play Europe Top 16 Cup despite a lot of cancelation from the other players, I played here and I am coming to Qatar to defend my title.”

 

Romanian coach Viorel FILIMON spoke about team’s performance.

 

"We had our good moments but then we went down", explained FILIMON. "Bernadette was two-one and 10-9 ahead, she had match point and missed her chance. For sure we knew they had two defenders in their team; previously we have played quite well against defenders. The Koreans were very focused and we had no knowledge of them. We had never played them before."