World Championships | 4 Mar 2020

Madarász and Szudi are the Hungarian champions

 

Dóra Madarász and Ádám Szudi underliend their status in singles at this year’s national championships held in Kecskemét.

 

Seniors in the mixed doubles event were the first to conclude their play on Saturday. As expected, Ádám Szudi and Szandra Pergel became champions, however in the final they had to fight themselves back from 2:1 against Péter Fazekas and Tímea Peterman-Varga.

 

“I thought it will be a much easier match, we were even leading in the second set, but there we might have lost some focus. Ádi played pretty well at the end, this is why we managed to come back and win the game,” revealed Szandra Pergel who did not enter the singles competition – even though she was the title holder – in order to maintained her focus even more on the doubles events.

 

Taking this into account Dóra Madarász stepped out to be the favourite of the Women’s singles event, which she turned into reality as she became first for the fourth time (2014, 2017, 2018, 2020).

 

“The whole competition was quite tough. I feel like everyone is trying to hunt us down after we grabbed the Olympic quota, all our opponents play very great table tennis against us, we experienced this with Szandi in the doubles event as well. In the final I perceived like I lost the first two sets in just some seconds against Timi Varga. She was superb, I had to fight for every single point,” confessed Dóra Madarász after her 4:2 comeback.

 

As the former and current champion mentioned they were hunted in the doubles event, but there was more than that, they were even caught with Szandra Pergel. They suffered in the Semifinal against the Leila Imre-Tíme Peterman-Varga duo, but they managed to win that game in the final set. In the final match they again went for the fifth set, but this time their opponents, Krisztina Ambrus and Kata Tóth prevailed.

 

“We went out keeping in mind not to look at the result, to play in a relaxed way and trying to stick to the tactics set up by our coach. In a nutshell, we had to go for shorter shots, make false spins, drop to the right places and make them move,” disclosed Kata Tóth, who won her first title at the national championships among adults, shedding light on some professional details.

 

For Krisztina Ambrus this was not the first national title in the adult field, but it was the first as part of the Erdért club, which made the victory even sweeter for her.

 

Among men’s doubles the first-seeded Ecseki-Szudi pairings triumphed, they beat the double of Csaba András and Olivér Both.

 

“The most important thing for us always is to be able to focus only on ourselves,” Nándor Ecseki referred, among other things, to the fact that they had to play with JOOLA Flash ball, on wooden floor, and in quite a big crowd, as the national championships for the para and the veteran players were also held on the same weekend at the same venue, at the Mercedes-Benz Sports Academy in Kecskemét.

 

The Men’s single event will remain a memorable one thanks to Dániel Kriston’s march, as he beat Bence Majoros in the quarterfinals, and prevailed against Ecseki in the Semifinals. In the final he won the first two sets, but the next four games were won by Szudi, which meant a third title for him after 2017 and 2019. He believed staying calm was the key for success as he could fully concentrate on the game.

 

Alexa Szvitacs also finished with some successful moments, she became national champion first with Bettina Bicsák in the para doubles event, after that she achieved the final victory in singles as well. In spite of all these, that bronze medal which she accomplished together with Viktor Vajda in the mixed doubles event among the abled players is what she is the most proud of.

 

THE GOLD MEDALLISTS OF THE JOINT NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

MEN

Singles: Ádám Szudi

Doubles: Nándor Ecseki, Ádám Szudi

U21 singles: Csaba András

U21 doubles: Csaba András, Olivér Both

U13 singles: Nikolasz Kizakisz Georgiosz

U12 singles: Csongor Lovas

U11 singles: Márk Gergely

 

WOMEN

Singles: Dóra Madarász

Doubles: Krisztina Ambrus, Kata Tóth

U21 singles: Orsolya Fehér

U21 doubles: Kata Füle, Fanni Harasztovich

U13 singles: Kendra Molnár

U12 singles: Liza Molnár

U11 singles: Sophie Barcsai