The World Pre-Paralympic Table Tennis Singles Tournament in Pattaya, Thailand runs from Thursday to Saturday and promises exciting moments and great competition as only the winner in each of the 11 men’s and ten women’s categories advances to Paris.
Greece has two representatives in the big event, Marios Chatzikyriakos in class 6 of the upright and Evanthia-Irini Bournia in class 3 of the wheelchair athletes.
The European team runner-up in 2019 and the “bronze” (in the last year and a half in both categories below) world and European champion learned on Wednesday their opponents in the first phase. Initially, they will “chase” qualification to the knockout stage and generally the best through remarkable performances.
The 2024 Paralympic Games will take place August 28-September 8.
Hatzikyriakos, who competed in the 2021 Paralympic Games and reached the round of 16, had then taken part in the Pre-Paralympic tournament. He had not obtained through this the right to participate in Tokyo, however he lived a valuable experience and found out the great difficulty of the competitions. Now at the Pattaya Exhibition Center he is fourth race favourite.
He was therefore placed at the head of the fourth and final group of Class 6. The draw pitted him against Germany’s Benedict Miller, American Samuel-William Altschuler and Alexander Esaulov, who was declared an independent on the basis of Russian or Belarusian passport holders.
Hatzikyriakos will have on the bench the federal coach E.A.OM.-A.Me.A., Eleftheria Daundakis.
In class 3 of women in wheelchairs two groups were formed. Bournia was drawn in the first, which is of three athletes, while the other has four athletes. The first group is led by Turkala Hatice Duman and the Chinese Zhonghui Yang is still competing.
Our young athlete has big obstacles in front of her and is from the third seeding series. Unfortunately, after the re-evaluation and the second class change, she ceased to be very high in the world rankings, as was the case in classes 1 and 2. Burnia is coached in Thailand by Lydia Ignatowicz from PASKA.
The first two positions of the groups lead to the knockouts and the further claim for Paralympic qualification.
The schedule for our international matches in the groups at our own times (Thailand is four hours ahead of Greece):
To women:
On Thursday 23/05 at 07:15 Bournia-Douman in table 3
On Friday 24/05 at 09:00 Bournia-Zang at table 4
In men:
On Thursday 23/05 at 10:10 Hadjikyriakos-Esaulov at table 9
On Thursday 23/05 at 15:25 Hatzikyriakos-Miller at table 9
On Friday 24/05, at 10:10 Hadzikyriakos-Altschuler at table 9
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