The reigning champions in the Under 19 Team’s Event, Team Romania, reached the semifinals after overcoming the top-seeded French team at the European Youth Championships in Ostrava. Once again, Ostrava proved to be an unlucky city for the favorites — France will miss the medal rostrum for the first time since the 2019 edition, which was also held at the Torax Arena.
Due to a rejuvenated lineup, Romania was seeded only at position no. 5 despite having won the title last year. With only two out of five players remaining from last year’s squad, the new team has shown that they can continue the legacy. Without Andrei ISTRATE and Darius MOVILEANU, Iulian CHIRITA led the team to the podium once again. He repeated last year’s performance against France, where Romania also stopped them in the semifinals.
Romania needed only three matches to secure their spot in the semis. Iulian CHIRITA defeated Flavio MOURIER, Dragos BUJOR prevailed against Nathan PILARD, and in a dramatic five-game battle, Robert Alexandru ISTRATE beat Nathan LAM.
“We knew that France has great players, all of them, and that it would be really difficult — they are the first seeds. But we went into the match with a clear head. We beat them in the last two years, so we just focused and played our best.
My match against MOURIER was important, especially for me, because at the beginning of the tournament I didn’t feel great and wasn’t playing my best. Against him, I knew I had to be careful with his long serves – but I prepared for that in practice. The tactic during the match remained the same the whole time. I didn’t change anything,” explained CHIRITA.
Romania’s first player continued:
“BUJOR beat PILARD – it was a really close match, and both played very well. The last match was ISTRATE against Nathan LAM. We’re really proud of him because he’s the youngest player on our team and he did a great job. He was up 2-0, but I think he got nervous and was afraid to win — this is his first European Youth Championships as a junior, but he managed to keep his head and win. In the semifinal we’ll play against Slovakia. We’ve never played against them before, but we know each other well, so we’ll see. We’ll discuss tactics with our coach and try our best.”
