European Youth Championships | 18 Jul 2018

KATSMAN leads Russia's team to the final

2018 STAG European Youth Championships

 

In epic battle Russia reached the final of the Junior Boys Teams Event. By doing so they inflicted the pain in the harts of the host nation supporters. Romania failed to reach the ultimate stage. France is the second finalist. They accounted for Germany.

 

Lev KATSMAN was the backbone of Russia’s success with two wins over Rares SIPOS and Cristian PLETEA. Maksim GREBNEV joined him, whilst Vladimir SIDORENKO failed to score against neither of top Romania’s players.  

 

In the quarters Romania kept crowd at the edge of their seats in the match against Belgium. Olav KOSOLOSKY put some extra pressure on host team by beating Cristian PLETEA, but Rares SIPOS leveled in the duel against Laurens DEVOS. Dragos OPREA added another point and PLETEA beat DEVOS in the fourth match.

”We feel good now after having qualified further but I think we could have played better than that. I hope we will come back in full speed for the rest of the tournament. There weren't big problems so far, but maybe we expected to play better than we did” said Rares SIPOS. “I feel ready for the next match. I am happy that Dragos had a good come back and won. It is very good for the team.”

In same stage, Russia’s KATSMAN, SIDORENKO and GREBNEV prevailed by same margin against Italy’s Matteo MUTTI, Carlo ROSSI and Gabriele ICIULIN.

 

Azerbaijan was halted after tremendous effort from France. Irvin BERTRAND, Bastien REMBERT and Lilian BARDET secured 3:2 victory. Against Germany they needed one match less. It was STUMPER who scored for German side only.

 

In quarters Germany prevailed against Greece after long distance thriller. Ioannis SGOUROPOULOS won both his matches against Kay STUMPER and MENG Fanbo, but other could not follow. STUMPER and and MENG Fanbo beat Ioannis DAMIANIS, whilst Cedric MEISSNER overcame Michail DIAMANTOPOULOS.

 

 “The match was amazing. We won and we are very happy that we will go further. The next match is going to be quite interesting, we are very focused and we will fight all together. We hope to pass it further till the finals with no problems”, said MENG Fanbo.

 

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