Markoulakis in the top six of the U11 category at the Youth Contender table tennis of Slovenia

The youngest of the Greek group at the World Table Tennis Youth Contender in Chania, 11-year-old Theofanis Markoulakis, entered the top six of his age category at the WTT Youth Contender in Slovenia, which continues in Otocek. He was favored in a three-way tie in his qualifying group and advanced to the table of ‘8’, where there are two ‘byes’.

The champion of Greece in singles mini girls achieved his goal with two wins and two losses and on Thursday he will aim to reach the semi-finals as much as possible.

Stefanos Mavromatakis and Nikos Angelidis made their own effort in the Under 15 category. They were excluded from the groups and finished their matches at the “Sport Centre” of Otocek, however they left good writing samples and gained new useful experiences.

We remind you that the three children will be in Varazdin during the week to continue the matches in the WTT Youth Contender in Croatia always under the guidance of the coach of OA Chania, Michalis Angelidis.

In the category Under 11 in Slovenia there were three qualifying groups. Markoulakis was in the first, which had five athletes, but the first two from each group passed. The case of qualification was anxious for the talented islander. He started with two defeats, continued with two wins and that’s how things came to be that he qualified after a three-way draw.

He lost first to Austrian Luis Fegerl (first favorite in the category) with 3-0 sets (3-11, 11-8, 5-11, 2-11) and then to Croatian Simun Milosevic with 3-1 sets (11- 7, 6-11, 7-11, 8-11). In the third match he overcame the Polish Adrian Nowakowski with 3-0 sets (11-7, 11-6, 11-4) and in the final the Kazakh Dagir Daniyarov, also with 3-0 sets (11-5, 11-4, 11-9).

Markoulakis tied with Novakovski and Milosevic at 6 points. Between the games he had a coefficient of +1 with 4 sets for and 3 against (3-0 win and 3-1 loss) and secured the second privileged position behind Fegerl. The Pole settled for third place (3-3 sets) and Milosevic (3-4) for fourth.

The draw on the board brought the next opponent to the Montenegrin Milan Vucetic, who qualified as the first and with the absolute number of victories from the third group. The match takes place at 12:00 in Greece, during the day the boys’ categories end. Mavromatakis faced the same athlete on Tuesday in Under 13 and “bent” with 3-2 sets.

In the Under 15 category, Angelidis was ranked third in the 15th group with 2 points. First, he lost to Chinese top seed Zhu Guanhong by 3-0 sets (5-11, 4-11, 4-11) and later by German Tien Fong by the same score (6-11, 5-11, 6-11 ).

Mavromatakis came third with 4 points in the 20th group, which had four athletes. In the first round he lost to the Spaniard Alexander Malof (head) with 3-0 sets (7-11, 10-12, 4-11). He then beat Slovenian Timo Urbas 3-1 sets (7-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-6) and in the decisive third match he overcame Korean Ma Jeongyun (12-14) 3-0 sets , 4-11, 3-11).