Before the arrival of 2024, Panagiotis Gionis had won the second place in Italy’s WTT Feeder and in the first days of the new year he seeks a good placement in the highest level of tournaments of the world federation, expecting also to collect points.
On the 16th of the month, he successfully passed the qualifying process. On the third day of the games in Doha and for the decisive fourth qualifying round, he gave a strong encounter with the German Kei Stuber. He prevailed with 3-2 sets and with a total of three wins (as he had advanced without a match initially), advanced to the board of “32” and realized his first goal.
In the doubles, Gionis and Konstantinos Angelakis had a similar match and were eliminated from the main draw.
In the men’s singles, the top 16 qualifiers would advance to the first round. Gionis (number 124 in the world ranking) won a five-set match with the Indian Manus Shah yesterday and today he managed to do the same against the 21-year-old German Kay Stuber (No. 146). He took the lead twice and equalized as the German men’s national team player excelled defensively.
In the fifth set, however, the athlete of Kostas Vatsaklis showed perfect concentration, had great stability and reached the final victory by a margin (11-6, 9-11, 12-10, 6-11 11-4).
After a while the draw was made and he was pitted against the outstanding youngster Isaac Quek. At 18 years of age, the Asian is ranked number 55 in the men’s category and was directly on the Contender board. Among other distinctions, last year he won first place in Turkey’s Youth Contender. At 5pm Greek time, the match will be held at table 4.
If Gionis enters the round of 16, he will face the winner of the Lee Sangsu (Korea)-Chuan Chi Yuan (Taipei) matchup.
On Tuesday, the decisive second qualifying round of the men’s doubles took place. Gionis and Angelakis had a very difficult task against the first favorite of the relevant board. They faced the Indian Man Utpalbey Shah/Senhit Suravajula and were eliminated in 3-0 sets.
After the second place at Feeder in Italy, they again showed potential in doubles, but the pair with left-handed and right-handed athletes was well “read” and had the solutions in all the critical points (6-11, 9-11, 9-11).
Elisabeth Terpou also competed in Doha, who was eliminated in the singles qualifiers with 1 win and 1 loss.
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