Papadimitriou on the board of the Hungarian Youth Contender

Malamatenia Papadimitriou advanced to the round of “32” of the Under 19 age category at the World Table Tennis Youth Contender in Hungary in Sobateli. In the final day of competition on Wednesday, the Greek champion will aim for a good placing and faces France’s Elise Pouyol in the early afternoon.

In Senek, moreover, Giorgos Manolopoulos and Marios Katsaprakakis completed their new important experience and strong tests in the WTT Youth Contender of Slovakia on Tuesday. Both chased the qualification with claims and deserved it, but in the details they were left off the board.

Immediately after the boys’ matches in the Hungarian tournament, the second part of the Greek participation began and the very experienced Papadimitriou started on Tuesday. Shortly before she ended her run as a junior she had a win and a loss in the first group and qualified as second.

In her premiere, she lost to the first favorite of the category, the Japanese Rin Mende with 3-0 sets (9-11, 3-11, 5-11). She won the decisive second match on Tuesday afternoon and achieved her goal with a very difficult 3-2 set win against Slovakian Eliska Stulerova.

The progress: 8-11, 11-6 11-8, 8-11 and 11-5.

The drawing of the board brought the champion of Greece in juniors and young women against France’s Elise Pouyol, who emerged as the winner in the eighth group of the qualifiers.

At the “Transpetrol Sport Hall” of Senek, Katsaprakakis competed first on Monday and was eliminated in the groups of the Under 17 category. The runner-up of Greece in the singles for children in 2022 tested his playing condition on Tuesday in the category above his own and in the of course, George Manolopoulos, champion of Greece in the singles for teenagers in 2022, also participated. They strongly claimed the qualification and cost them marginal defeats.

In the category of athletes up to 19 years of age, there were 29 groups of three athletes. Manolopoulos was in 27th place. In the first match, he lost to Poland’s top seed Patrik Zivoronek in 3-1 sets. He had defeated this particular athlete in the Sobatelli group with 3-0 sets last week, but now in another strong match he failed to repeat it (9-11, 12-10, 7-11, 8-11).

In the afternoon of the same day, our defensive-style international played for the second privileged position with the Czech Vid Kandlek. He took a 2-0 set lead, but suffered a reversal and was eliminated from the rest (11-7, 11-8, 8-11, 10-12, 5-11).

Katsaprakakis was in the 25th group of the Slovakian Youth Contender. He could start perfectly, but he also “bent” with 3-2 sets by the Swedish leader Elias Sjögren (5-11, 13-11, 12-10, 7-11, 7-11).

In the third matchday, another obstacle from Poland proved to be too high, as happened many times for the Greek colors in the two consecutive Contenders. The athlete from Athena Magoufanas lost a 3-0 set to Marcel Blaszczyk and ended up in third place in the group (6-11, 8-11, 8-11).