Eduard IONESCU and Darius MOVILEANU of Romania overcame Andre BERTELSMEIER of Germany and Tiago ABIODUN of Portugal in the final of the European Under 21 Championships to claim the title in the Men’s Doubles event.
The semi-finalists were Croatia’s Leon BENKO and Ivan HENCL, and Romania’s Iulian CHIRITA and Andrei ISTRATE—bronze medallists from 2024.
Last year’s runners-up, IONESCU and MOVILEANU, dropped only one game in the final against the Portuguese-German combination, securing a 3-1 victory (11-6, 11-5, 9-11, 11-6).
“It was a close and tough final, just like all the matches here,” said IONESCU. “Last year we were runners-up and came to Bratislava with the mindset that this time we had to win. It was very hard from the beginning. We faced serious challenges in the quarterfinals against Daniel BERZOSA and Miguel PANTOJA of Spain, and again in the semis against Leon BENKO and Ivan HENCL… but those matches gave us confidence and prepared us for what awaited us in the final.”
IONSCU also praised the performance of BERTELSMEIER and ABIODUN, who had beaten their Romanian teammates CHIRITA and ISTRATE in the semi-finals.
“They beat our teammates, which says a lot about their level. I’m really happy to have clinched the title in the end and to say goodbye to my Under 21 career in golden style.”
Darius MOVILEANU added:
“We prepared our tactics with our teammates and coach. We played almost perfectly—more precisely, Edi played unbelievably well. I was under a bit of stress, because I played about 15 matches here. It’s not easy to play the final after such a schedule, especially against those two guys—they’re an exceptionally strong pair. But so are we.”
MOVILEANU reflected on the overall challenge of the tournament:
“We were challenged throughout. The match against the Spanish pair was especially tough. We were 2-0 up, and they came back to level—it was incredibly close.”
