Papadimitriou in the first 16 of the U21 women’s doubles at the European Championship

Together with her Hungarian teammate, Helga Dari, Malamatenia Papadimitriou entered the first 16 of the women’s doubles of the Under 21 European Table Tennis Championship in Sarajevo and on Friday they will give everything to enter the quarterfinals.

In the corresponding event last year they were placed with the same athlete in positions 9-16 and now they want something more. It should be noted, in fact, that in the first round they overcame a very high obstacle, in fact, they achieved a total reversal from 0-2 behind in the sets.

In the Under 21 women’s singles, it was confirmed in practice that our 19-year-old champion had an extremely difficult task. In the groups of stage 2, where the 32 best of the league are located, it suffered two defeats on Friday and lost its chances of qualifying for the round of 16.

Her good intervals were not up to that level to lead her to anything positive, but in any case she provided new very useful tests.

In the Under 21 mixed doubles, Papadimitriou and Poland’s Mateus Zalewski were eliminated in the first round.

In stage 2 of the women’s singles, eight groups of four athletes were formed. The effort in group B began at noon against Veronika Matiunina (No. 49 seeding), the 17-year-old outstanding athlete from Ukraine, who in 2021 won the silver medal in the girls’ singles of the European Championship.

In stage 1, they were drawn in the fourth group stage, but managed to take first place in the sixth group with three wins in as many matches. Papadimitriou (No. 32) hardly lost the balanced first set and easily the next. In the 3rd set he took an early lead and then made it 9-4. The Ukrainian reacted and managed to equalize at 10-10, but with the right choices, Giorgos Karytsa’s athlete took the next two points and the set.

Then she couldn’t keep a good pace and Matiunina took advantage of it for the final 4-1 set (8-11, 1-11, 12-10, 3-11 and 3-11).

On Thursday afternoon and for the second matchday of group B, the opponent was Sofia Kle (No. 17 in the tournament), who was the leader in the ninth group and confirmed her superiority undefeated. Both gymnasts had started with a loss, so the match was of great importance.

Our left-handed international took on a very difficult task, she tried to push hard, but as soon as she lost the third set, in which she had built a serious lead, the game was effectively decided. She was leading 8-4, but saw her opponent break through with five straight points and finally prevail at the limit, as she had done in the immediately preceding set. In the final 4-0 set the score was 6-11, 9-11, 9-11 and 4-11.

Group B concludes on Friday. Our champion closes her games against head Hana Arapovic. The Croatian, who was directly in stage 2, as she figures in the second place of the favorites, leads with two positive results.

The match against last year’s European junior doubles champion takes place at 12:00 Greek time.

The Under 21 women’s doubles started at noon with a scoreboard of “32”. In her second consecutive collaboration in the same institution with the Hungarian Helga Dari, Papadimitriou once again managed to enjoy the qualification to the top 16 (the duo is number 9 in the seeding).

In fact, the girls achieved it with a great twist. They found themselves losing 2-0 sets to Tsvetelina Georgieva/Enisa Sadikovic of Bulgaria and Luxembourg respectively (No. 18), but then had the final say in the crucial points and cruised to a 3-2 set victory (9- 11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7).

In the second round, the Greek-Hungarian couple faces the strong Sofia Kle/Anna Hersey from Germany and Wales respectively. Both distinguished themselves in the event, they were European runners-up in the junior doubles, in 2021 Cle and in 2022 Hersey. In Sarajevo, he is number 9 in the favorites.

The competition day started with the mixed doubles. Papadimitriou had Polish Mateusz Zalewski as her teammate (as a duo they were number 36 in the seeding) and they knew the details of the immediate elimination. In the round of 64, they were defeated by the Czechs Tomas Martinko/Anna Klebererova (No 30) with 3-1 sets. They found themselves behind in the score, tied straight away and lost the next two sets in overtime (8-11, 11-6, 10-12, 10-12).