In the Under 15 Girls Event, for the first time since 1999, Romania will not appear on the medal rostrum. Italy made their mark in history and secured at least a bronze medal. Manon LOTH, Sofia EPISCOPO, and Gioia Maria PICU overcame Patricia STOICA, Maya Roberta MADAR, and Kariss Yasmin SERBAN.
“We played match by match, and we were really focused the whole time. We were really happy to reach the top 16, then the quarterfinals, and now even happier to be in the semifinals.
In this match, I tried to put our number one player against their number one in the first match, and it worked. LOTH won 3-1 against STOICA, and that put a lot of pressure on them, I think.
After that match, we continued with a calm mindset. We didn’t expect this at all — when we saw the draw for the first time, we knew it would be difficult. But to beat Romania is something incredible.
We prepared better, found a good tactic from the beginning, and followed it the whole time. Before the match, I prepared a video and discussed tactics with the team — who should play against whom, and so on. I think that helped a lot, we knew what to do. I even had a paper with tactical notes in my pocket, and I used it,” said Italian coach Hugo BERGER, laughing.“The first two matches were really important for us. If we had gone 0-2 down, it would’ve been really difficult to come back. The next round will be really tough because we play against France, but we believe in ourselves and we’ll try our best to beat them.”
In the semifinals, Italy will face France, while Germany will play against Czechia.
