Two wins and Gionis plays for the main draw in the Slov table tennis Contender

Panagiotis Gionis with two wins on Tuesday in Nova Gorica advanced to the fourth qualifying round of men’s singles in the WTT Contender table tennis in Slovenia and on Wednesday he claims the qualification to the main draw.

Gionis had competed in an international event since last spring. He started his attempt decisively and with a remarkable competitive face and is already going to realize a very difficult goal given that in the first round of the competition only eight athletes pass the qualifying process.

In the second qualifying round, he successively defeated the Finnish Alex Naumi and the Croatian Filip Zeliko, and on Wednesday he claims entry into the “32” of the Open against the powerful Japanese Yuta Tanaka.

After advancing “bye” to the first qualifying round, Gionis (number 102 in the current world ranking list) began his matches on Tuesday morning from the round of “64”. He faced Finland’s Ale Naumi (No. 253) and, picking up a good rhythm from the start, imposed his game. He cruised to a 3-0 set victory and was only really in danger in the second set (11-3, 11-9, 11-5).

In the “32” of the qualifiers, our seasoned champion faced Philip Zeliko. Years ago he had faced him in a European championship and had defeated him without much pressure, but since then the Croatian has made a noticeable improvement, in fact today he is at number 80 in the world ranking.

Gionis entered the game perfectly and with the initial 5-0 he left little room for reaction to his opponent. In the second set, he led 5-1 and lost 6 points in a row to find himself behind 5-7. He immediately reached the equalizer, using his serve, but in overtime he finally accepted the 1-1.

In the third set, the set got off to a good start again. He made it 5-1 and seemed to continue to control the match. Evidence that, after holding the advantage and retaking the lead, he had a similarly outstanding period in the fourth set when he found himself 4-1 ahead. Zeliko came close and reached the point, but, thanks to his good choices and quality in defense and attack, Gionis reached the final victory in the fourth set (11-7, 11-13, 11-7, 11-9).

Moments later, Yuta Tanaka prevailed 3-2 in a straight set against Hong Kong’s Lam Siu Hang and will be Gioni’s opponent in the decisive qualifying round of the ’16’. The match starts at 14:50 Greek time. This week the Japanese is ranked number 119 in the world.

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