In the first qualifying round of the World Table Tennis Singapore Smash table tennis, Panagiotis Gionis gave a strong match against the Ukrainian Yaroslav Zmudenko, until he defeated him with 3-2 sets and entered the “32” of this table.
It was also a psychological victory, not only because it came in five sets, but because the opponent was second favorite in the qualifiers. The top defender needs two more wins to advance to the first round of the men’s singles and may not have shown a very good game face, but he showed character at the most crucial points and has the potential to go further.
In the second qualifying round in Singapore, he will meet the winner of the Marcos Madrid (Mexico)-Kay Stuber (Germany) match, which takes place on Wednesday.
At Singapore Sports Hub’s OCBC Arena, Gionis (number 91 in the new international ranking list announced on Tuesday) returned to international action after last November’s WTT Feeder in Dusseldorf when he progressed to the singles semi-finals. Drawn at the base of the board, he immediately “fell” against a higher-ranked player in the world (number 62 this week) with the encouraging fact, however, that Zmudenko is not very strong against the defense.
This was also seen in practice, just at the same time it was seen in the match that Gionis was also somewhat heavy, since due to the problem with the Achilles tendon he has not been able to prepare properly in the last months. The ability, experience and correct tactics, however, helped him decisively in the most difficult moments.
In Zmudenko’s choice to press with backhand attacks and make frequent changes of pace with stops to tire the opponent, his athlete Kosta Vatsaklis found solutions with forehand spin, difficult pushed balls with the “tooth” and defenses with false-false. It is characteristically noted that in the third year he was behind with 2-4 and quickly reacted with 5 points in a row.
In the decisive fifth set, he minimized the mistakes and took advantage of the quick lead (11-6, 9-11, 11-7, 7-11, 11-7).
The most likely opponent in the qualifying round of “32” is the German Kay Stuber.
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