After two wins in the World Table Tennis Feeder qualifiers in Portugal, Katerina Toliou scored a big result in the first round of the main draw on Thursday and later came very close to entering the round of 16.
She eventually fought back in five sets and narrowly trailing Holland’s Erland at the end, but managed to place well in positions 17-32 while also securing points for the world ranking which are among her main goals in these strong tournaments.
In “64” she had achieved a great victory against the Korean Kim Hae-yong, who is 100 places higher in the international rating table, in the next match she came close to an upset from 0-2 sets and in general presented herself in a very good condition.
The first round of the women’s singles was played on Thursday morning and Toliu (No. 218) started as an underdog against Kim Hae-yong. Moreover, he lost the first set by a margin, however, after that, the picture changed. Making it difficult for the balls from the defense and with correct offensive choices, our experienced athlete equalized and entered the game firmly. He also progressed with a better mentality and this was also seen in the very crucial fourth set. He took it by two points and reached the remarkable victory with 3-1 sets (5-11, 11-8, 11-5, 11-9).
In the second round, Toliu met the very familiar Britt Erland. It has been many years since they met in an international competition and in the past they each had one victory. Erland took the first set with a slight upset and in the second set took a 10-6 lead.
Down 10-9, Toliou didn’t flinch and cut the score even though she had three runs in the third. With patience and quality defenses, he performed even better in the fourth set, upset Erland and equalized.
With completely positive thinking, the fifth set also started strong, in fact, at the change of sides, he was ahead with 5-2. The experienced Dutchwoman with participation in the Olympic Games found morale and solutions and overcame with 9-6 to write an exciting finale. Toliou reacted brilliantly, equalized and held serve, but errors cost her the final 3-2 set (7-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-6, 9-11).
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