WTT Feeder Dusseldorf: Sgouropoulos, Angelakis advanced to the third qualifier

Konstantinos Angelakis in the afternoon and a little later Yannis Sgouropoulos, after having a “bye” at the beginning, entered the third qualifying round of singles at the World Table Tennis Feeder in Dusseldorf. They overcame hurdles from Asia and Europe respectively and on Tuesday they seek the next steps.

The traditionally strong tournament in the German city provides the men with a total of four qualifying rounds and gives eight qualifiers to the main draw of the ’64’ through the process. We remind you that Panagiotis Gionis is directly in the first round of the competition.

In the women’s singles, Malamatenia Papadimitriou was eliminated in the first qualifier of the German Feeder and now focuses her attention on the World Pre-Olympic mixed doubles tournament, where she will compete with Giorgos Stamatouros (11 and 12/04 in Havirov, Czech Republic).

Papadimitriou (number 398 in the current world ranking) was the first from the Greek side to enter the tables of the “Deutsches Tischtennis-Zentrum” and she faced the very remarkable Romanian Tania Plaian (No. 235) in the “64” qualifier. In their first meeting in such an event, he fought in all sets, but lost 3-0 and was eliminated (7-11, 9-11, 6-11).

In the men’s singles, both our athletes entered the second qualifying round without a fight. Then Angelakis (number 303 in the world) first competed and found Pau Yik Man from Hong Kong (No 272) in front of him. The Greek defender gained a very good rhythm from the beginning, he passed his game, combining it with quality attacks and managed to prevail with a 3-0 set (11-2, 11-7, 11-9). In the next qualifier at 13:50 on Tuesday, he faces another strong Asian, but from a different school, Indian Sehit Suravajula.

Also, for the second qualifying round of singles, Sgouropoulos (No. 237) started his attempt late in the afternoon. He faced the developing Spaniard Miguel Pantoja (No 428) and with a solid performance he prevailed with a 3-1 set. He took the lead with difficulty, in the third set he lost a match point and accepted the reduction of the score, but he took advantage of the next opportunity (11-9, 11-6, 11-13, 11-7). In the third qualifier on Tuesday, he faces Korean Park Gangheon, who reached the quarterfinals of the event last year at Feeder III in Dusseldorf.

A draw has also been made for the main draw, all that remains is the completion of the qualifiers to fill in the blanks. Gionis will face Croatia’s Filip Zeliko on Wednesday.