WTT Feeder Sweden: Sgouropoulos, Stamatouros and Angelakis qualified for the main draw

Greece is with four athletes and one athlete at the WTT Feeder of Sweden which takes place in Stockholm and had very positive results in its first section.

Specifically, Yiannis Sgouropoulos, Giorgos Stamatouros and Konstantinos Angelakis successfully passed the singles qualifying process, scoring two victories each. Malamatenia Papadimitriou came close to qualifying in the women’s singles, but was narrowly eliminated by the second favorite of the qualifiers.

In the board of “64” of the men’s singles, which starts on Wednesday, there will be a total of four of our athletes, as Panagiotis Gionis was directly there due to his position in the world ranking. In the first round, however, the draw did not help him, as he was pitted against number 1, Sweden’s Truls Meregaard, European team champion a few days ago.

Sgouropoulos faces the Norwegian Borgar Haug, Angelakis the Ukrainian Yaroslav Zmudenko and Stamatouros the French Liliane Bardet.

The “knockout” qualifiers in men’s singles were “64”. Sgouropoulos had a “bye” in the first round and in the second he encountered great difficulty against the Swede Martin Fris. He found himself losing 2-1, until he found the solutions and “turned around” the situation for the final 3-2 set (11-9, 6-11, 11-13, 11-9, 11-6).

It should be noted that Fries reached an agreement in the summer with OEA Thessaloniki. The third qualifying round gave the qualifiers to the main draw. The four-time European junior champion faced another Swede, Daniel Lindso, this time he had an easy task and won 3-0 sets (11-4, 11-3, 11-6).

Stamatouros also had a “bye” in the “64” and in the “32” he eliminated the Puerto Rican Jabdiel Torres with a 3-1 set. He found strong resistance, however, in the fourth set he had to save two bowl sets (11-2, 10-12, 11-6, 13-11).

He was also better than his opponent in the round of 16. He defeated the Hungarian Balács Ley with 3-1 sets and passed to the main draw (11-5, 11-3, 10-12, 11-8).

Two victories were also required for Angelakis. He also went through the first round without a fight and in the next he was defeated by Mahdi Ahmadian with 3-0 sets (11-5, 11-6, 11-3). Ahmadian competes with the refugee team and is a 28-year-old athlete who was born in Iran.

The Greek defender, unrated in the last few months, had a tough match in the evening for the qualification. He was behind with 1-0 and 2-1 sets against the Czech Tomas Koldas and with a very good performance he “turned around” the situation (9-11, 11-7, 4-11, 11-8, 11-5).

For Gionis, who competes on Wednesday immediately on the scoreboard, it should be noted that last week he also faced the former runner-up of the men’s and youth world, Meregard. He was in the Polish League and had lost very hard with 3-1 sets.

In the women’s singles, the qualifying board was “32”. Papadimitriou initially overcame the obstacle of the Swedish Hanna Holgersson with a 3-1 set (9-11, 11-7, 11-5, 11-6). In the afternoon, she faced the second favorite of this board, the Croatian Andrea Pavlovic. He produced a very respectable performance and set up the conditions for victory when he tied twice and took a 5-3 lead in the fifth set. However, she saw Pavlovic pass her and eventually she fought back with 3-2 and was left out of the round of 64 (6-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-6, 7-11).

Papadimitriou also participated in the women’s doubles with her teammate Chang Lee Xian from Malaysia. They started from the qualifiers, went through the first round without a fight and were eliminated in the second and decisive for qualifying on the board. They lost to Poland’s Ilona Swertnia/Paulina Krzyzek in 3-0 sets (9-11, 3-11, 9-11).

* In Scandinavia, Greek participation was also recorded these days at the level of athletes with disabilities. In particular, Dimitris Adamantidis, champion of Greece in class 11 (athletes with mental retardation), took part in the ITTF Fa20 Para Open 2023 in Finland, which ended in Pajulahti.

Adamantidis, who had a special experience in an international tournament, initially participated in the second group of the class 11 men’s singles and was excluded from the “knockouts” with the third place. He lost to the Spanish Eduardo Martinez-Cuesta with 3-0 sets (6-11, 4-11, 4-11) and to the Polish leader, Maciej Makaleff, with the same score (3-11, 6-11, 4- 11).