Europe Top-16 Cup | 3 Feb 2017

Marcos Freitas keeps group campaign alive

ITTF Europe Top 16 Cup

 

After enduring a tough opening match defeat, Portugal’s Marcos FREITAS has put his name back into contention in Group D following his victory over Kristian KARLSSON in the afternoon encounter at the ITTF Europe Top 16 Cup in France.

 

FREITAS lost out by three straight games in his first match in Antibes, but against KARLSSON he only required three ends to earn his first win of the tournament (12-10, 11-4, 11-8) and after the match the no.4 seed stated that he would continue to fight for a place in the last eight in his final group match.

 

“I’m happy. I didn’t have the best start today, I lost to Andrej GACINA in the first match but this is the group stage so anything is possible I must fight until the end. After losing the first match 0-3 I was a little bit afraid, I was not feeling very confident and didn’t have a feeling for the ball. But now with this victory I think I’m slowly coming back, I will fight in the last match and hopefully I can get through the group”, Marcos FREITAS.

 

Another competitor who managed to put his name back into contention was Greece’s Panagiotis GIONIS following his Group C success against Mattias KARLSSON.

 

Having missed out in the fifth game against Stefan FEGERL in his early match, GIONIS was put under pressure to deliver a positive result in his second group fixture and the Greek representative managed to keep his cool as he saw off KARLSSON by a 3-0 scoreline (11-5, 11-9, 13-11).

 

“I think I played quite good against Mattias KARLSSON, I was concentrating well. I think also that I like how my opponent was playing this time… I was very focused, I needed to win this game 3-0 or 3-1 to have a very small chance to qualify and if I beat Stefan FEGERL after so the game was good for me. Okay maybe in the second end I maybe lost a little bit of my concentration but in the end I was fine”, Panagiotis GIONIS.