WTT Feeder of Italy: In the doubles, the qualifiers came on the board for the Greek team

Bad in its first part, clearly improved afterwards was for the Greek athletes the second competition day in the city of Biella for the World Table Tennis Feeder in Italy. On Wednesday 13/12 decisive matches for the qualifiers took place in the central boards of the individual events. In the men’s singles the result was completely negative, as Yiannis Sgouropoulos, Giorgos Konstantinopoulos and Konstantinos Angelakis were eliminated in the 2nd qualifying round and did not manage to reach the qualifying matches. However, in the doubles, qualifiers came on the boards, so from tomorrow, Thursday 14/12, Greece will be represented in all events except the women’s doubles. Gionis/Angelakis and Sgouropoulos/Konstantinopoulos won the men’s doubles, while Angelakis/Toliou continue as lucky losers in the mixed doubles. In the same competition, Stamatouros/Papadimitriou had entered the table without a fight, in fact the draw brought the two Greek twins against each other tomorrow! From here on in the 1st round of the singles Gionis participates in the men, Katerina Toliou, Malamatenia Papadimitriou and Elisavet Terpou in the women (there was no qualifying phase here).

In the first section, today’s program continued with the men’s singles qualifiers. Some more, some less and our three internationals had reasonable chances to make at least the 3rd and final qualifying round, but they couldn’t progress

Angelakis (number 338 in the current world ranking) after advancing without a fight to the 2nd round was faced with Jules Cavaigue (No 668). The Frenchman showed great skills against the defense, he was also lucky at critical points (like at 9-10 of the 2nd set where he made an elusive sori on the edge of the table) and won 3-0. In the 3rd set our champion saved two match points and then led 11-10, but did not change the situation (6-11, 9-11, 11-13).

Konstantinopoulos (unrated until this week) was coming off a win in the 1st qualifier and today had the high hurdle of Slovenia’s Petar Hribar (No. 289). The match was uneventful, but our left-handed international lagged behind in the details of the 2nd and 3rd set to finally be eliminated with a 3-0 set (6-11, 10-12, 9-11).

Later in the afternoon, Sgouropoulos (No. 370) competed. He was favorite against the Italian Antonino Amato (No. 583), he also took the lead, but suddenly his performance dropped significantly. He equalized in overtime and finally with several mistakes he suffered a 3-1 set defeat (11-6, 11-13, 7-11, 8-11). We remind you that Amato had a small participation last year in the Greek A1 with Olympiakos, he kept his card this year as well but has not competed.

Always in the singles, the opponents of the Greek athletes in the 1st round are known since yesterday. In the men, Gionis faces Angel Naranjo from Puerto Rico tomorrow (21:40, table 3). In the women’s category, Papadimitriou meets the Italian Georgia Picolin (14:05, table 2), Terpou the Serbian Isabella Loupulescu (11:45, table 3) and Toliou the Serbian Sabina Sourgian (15:15, table 2). All matches are streamed online through the WTT youtube channel and there you find the links for each of the four tables.

MEN’S DOUBLE QUALIFICATIONS AND ROUND 1 OPPONENTS

In the men’s doubles today 13/12 two qualifiers in the 1st round came. Sgouropoulos/Konstantinopoulos had a winning start to their effort on Tuesday and on Wednesday they took down the 1st favorite on the board of the qualifiers. In particular, they defeated the Nigerians Orok Etim/Aziz Solanke with 3-0 sets and went emphatically on the scoreboard (11-6, 13-11, 11-3).

The defenders Gionis and Angelakis, who had a bye in the 1st qualifier, today overcame the difficult times against Andrea Puppo/Marco Cappuccio from Italy and with a score of 3-1 they went to the round of 16 (11-6, 11-13, 11-6).

The draw for the main table was done very quickly. Tomorrow Sgouropoulos/Konstantinopoulos face the Japanese Sora Matsushima/Mizuki Oikawa, who are in Biella number 1 of the competition (start at 12:20 on table 1), while Gionis and Angelakis face Federico Valino/Giacomo Alegransa (12 :55, table 3).

In the women’s doubles Toliou/Papadimitriou had a very difficult draw in the only qualifying round and were defeated 3-0 sets by the Japanese Asuka Sasao/Mizuzu Takeya (4-11, 7-11, 8-11).

In the mixed doubles qualifiers, Angelakis and Toliou sought entry to the board against Jan Valenda/Zdena from the Czech Republic. They did not perform well and lost with a score of 3-0 (6-11, 5-11, 7-11), however they entered the round of 16 as “lucky losers”. There they find opposite them at 10:35 (table 3) Stamatouros/Papadimitriou in another Greek “civil war” in the Italian Feeder after the Sgouropoulos-Stamatouros matchup in the singles qualifiers.