European U21 Table Tennis Championship: Papadimitriou was excluded from stage 2 of the singles

In her first appearance at the European Under-21 Table Tennis Championships in Cluj Napoca, Malamatenia Papadimitriou took part in stage 1 of the singles and was eliminated from the rest, finishing in third place. Even before the draw, the Greek champion had admitted that she will have a very difficult task, however she created the conditions to be in one of the first two positions of the group leading to the next phase, when she gained a substantial lead in the opening match and in addition she also emerged an absence of an opponent.

In the end, he experienced the upset, later he was a clear outsider in the second match against the leader of the group and in the final he was eliminated from the stage of “32” with two defeats.

The European Championships continue on Thursday for the 18-year-old champion, who now turns her attention to the Junior Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles.

In the sixth Greek appearance in the same number of annual Under 21 championships, the athlete from Salamina (number 50 in the seeding list of the Championship) made her debut in the sixth group, facing the Czech Linda Zanderova (No. 25). She had been stressing since Tuesday that she always gives two-sided matches against her, but she knows defeats and, unfortunately, the same happened now in a hard way.

In the match, our left-handed international caught a good standard of performance and laid the foundations for an important victory and an ideal start in the European Championship. She lost the first set hard and “answered” with three in a row, using her serve and “full” spins. But then she couldn’t keep the same pace, she saw her opponent improve her game face and was beaten 4-3. She even seemed to get stressed from the fifth set onwards and was inconsistent in her attacks and reception.

In the sixth set, she converted from 3-8 to 7-8, but did not complete the upset, in the nerve-wracking seventh set she took an early lead, but Zanderova raced ahead 5-2 and held control. Papadimitriou thus lost a good opportunity to take a qualification step, as the Norwegian Rike Skatet (No. 38) did not appear in the games and lost them on paper, on the contrary, the attempt to get one of the two privileged places in the groups became even more difficult.

The sets: 11-8, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 1-11, 8-11 and 6-11

At noon on Wednesday there was no match for our international, because Skatet did not “come down” and the final in the group came in the afternoon against the head Anna Vegrzin. Earlier, the Polish athlete, number 14 in the seeding list of the event, had won Zanderova very hard with 4-2 sets (11-5, 11-13, 11-9, 14-16, 12-10, 11-8). .

Papadimitriou did not get the performance that would have allowed her to pressure the European champion of 2019 in the junior singles. He lost easily with 4-0 sets and with the third place in the group he was left out of the continuation of the European Championship.

The evolution: 5-11, 7-11, 2-11 and 4-11

On Thursday, Papadimitriou continues her doubles effort. In doubles, the 2021 Greek champion in the Young women’s singles has Hungarian Helga Dari as her teammate and is No. 11 in the seeding. In the “32”, they have been drawn with Ariana Barani/Maria Vidakovic from Italy and Croatia respectively. The match takes place in the early afternoon on Thursday and, if the victory comes, the next opponents will be the first favourites, the Turkish Ozge Yilmaz/Ece Harak.

In the Under 21 mixed doubles, Papadimitriou will team up with Austrian Jonas Proberger (No. 35). On Thursday morning, they meet Italy’s John Oyebonde/Gaia Monfardini in the first round and, if they win, they will meet Dimitri Levajac/Ozge Yilmaz of Serbia and Turkey respectively in the second round.

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