Elisavet Terpou, Malamatenia Papadimitriou and Dimitra-Thomais Tsekoura were eliminated in the first qualifying round of the English WTT Feeder women’s singles and could not secure a first point harvest from this tournament. Given the difficulty, both from the high level of competition and from the “knockout” system, they all had hopes of victory (some less, some more), but nothing substantial came.
The Greek presence in Manchester will continue only with Panagiotis Gionis, who competes from Friday in the main board of the men’s singles. In “32”, he was drawn with the Romanian Ovidiu Ionescu.
There were two qualifying rounds of singles in England’s Feeder for men and women and they gave a total of eight qualifiers. Of our three female champions, Terpou and Chekoura started as outsiders, while Papadimitriou had the odds on her side.
The first two became competitive regardless of whether they were eliminated in three sets, while the third lost a big chance to enter the decisive qualifying round in a match where it had led with characteristic ease.
Terpou (number 337 this week in the world ranking) and Tsekura (No. 397) competed in time. Terpu performed well against Poland’s Katarzyna Wegrzyn (No. 134) and claimed the victory. All the sets were closed, in the third the runner-up of Greece in women’s singles in 2021 covered a handicap from 1-6, equalized at 10-10 and also got a bowl set, but did not manage to reduce the score (8-11, 9-11 , 12-14).
Tsekoura faced the Italian Deborah Vivarelli (No. 139), also known to Greek fans from her collaboration with Olympiakos last year. She tried to surprise her with the backhand rubber combo and pressured her throughout the sets. Had he broken even in the second set, where he led 7-5, the outcome could have been different. The set went to 9-9 and Vivarelli used both of her serves to write after the final 3-0 set (6-11, 9-11, 8-11).
A little later, Papadimitriou (No. 383) was the favorite against the 17-year-old Hannah Shilcock from the island of Jersey (No. 586) and she showed this at the beginning of the match, leaving her opponent alone in the first set! Then, however, the match took an unexpectedly bad turn. The left-hander accepted the draw and the worst thing is that she lost the third set in overtime, in which she led 10-4! Then he was affected psychologically and, falling behind 1-5, lost the fourth set (11-0, 7-11, 16-18, 8-11).
For his part, Gionis begins his own effort on Friday against Romanian Ovidiu Ionescu, European runner-up in men’s singles in 2018.
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