Pre-Paralympic table tennis tournament: Hatzikyriakos’ progress stopped in the eight round, elimination for Bournia

Two top names, Marios Hatzikyriakos in class 6 of the upright and Evanthia-Irini Bournia in class 3 of the wheelchair athletes, completed their World Pre-Paralympic tournament in Pattaya, Thailand on Friday with the satisfaction of a very good effort.

Hatzikyriakos went further, having experienced the joy of participating in the Paralympic Games three years ago. Our champion came second from the group stage and was hardly eliminated in the round of 16. If he prevailed there, then he would need two more wins and the first place to qualify for Paris.

Bournia had very high obstacles in front of her from the start. She finished third in the first group, but she is still at a young age and definitely gained new valuable experiences that will help her in the future.

In the men’s class 6, Hatzikyriakos wanted to go as far as possible in the Pre-Paralympics and chase the qualification. He did it initially by qualifying from the groups. In the third match, he played the decisive game against the American Samuel William-Altschuller. He celebrated the victory with 3-1 sets, reached 5 points and took the second privileged position from the fourth group, where he started as the leader. The sets: 11-9, 7-11, 11-5 and 11-8.

Hatzikyriakos’ tally was 2 wins and 1 loss. First with 3 wins in the same number of matches came Esaulov, who was declared in Thailand as an independent.

In the table of “8”, the European runner-up of the team in 2019 was drawn with the Italian Raimondo Alessi, who had initially dominated as the first favorite in the third group with the absolute success. With a backhand combo-rubber (“tooth”), Alechi has a style of play that is difficult to deal with.

The Greek international found solutions in several parts of the match, he played with proper concentration and tactics in the opponent’s weaknesses, but he lacked the ball more in the two most critical sets.

In the first, which he lost in overtime, and the fourth, in which he saved three match points and did not complete the reversal (12-14, 2-11, 11-4, 10-12).

In women’s class 3, Bournia participated in the first group. In her premiere at the event, the “bronze” champion of the world and Europe had lost a 3-0 set to Turkala head Hatice Duman and on Friday she was “bent” 3-1 by Chinese Zhonghui Yang (1-11, 12-10, 2 -11, 4-11).

She played a superior opponent but, anyway, hopes of reaching the semi-finals, even with second place, had been lost since Thursday as the Asian had beaten Duman 3-0.