A busy second day which finally brought some of the seeded players into the fray – in the Doubles at least, contained some excellent performances in both triumph and defeat at the World Individual Table Tennis Champoinships at the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam.
The day started with the final round of qualification group matches, all four of the men, Danny, Darius, Liam and Andrew won their final matches to win their groups in various fashions. Andrew Baggaley had no problem defeating Rrahman Ademaj of Kosovo who was later disqualified for an illegal racquet. Darius Knight had it even easier, his opponent David Powell of Australia did not turn up – walkover to Darius. Danny Reed took a good 4-0 win over Timothy Wang of the USA while Liam Pitchford only dropped one end defeating Agon Saiti of FRY Macedonia (FRY = Former Republic of Yugoslavia to give the full title) thus all the men who had to take part in the qualification groups moved forward to the preliminary knockouts, now things got a bit tougher,
Preliminary Round 1 group winners v group winners, groups 27 to 102
Preliminary Round 2 group 1-26 winners v the previous round winners.
Round one produced a mixture of results, Darius Knight fell to what I am sure was a disappointing defeat against Mounaim Tirsel of Morocco, Liam Pitchford had a good but very tight 7 set win over Bojan Crepulja of Serbia while Traian Ciociu of Luxembourg saw defeat at the hands of Danny Reed 4-2.
Andrew Baggaley was in one of the top 26 groups and joined in the second preliminary round where he made short work of Alberto Mino of Ecuador in 4 fairly tight games. Liam Pitchford produced a tremendous performance to defeat Jaroslaw Tomicki of Poland the world number 171. Danny Reed faced another strong player in Alfredo Carneros of Spain, world ranked no 155, Danny started superbly and blew the higher ranked Carneros away in the first game, the second went to Danny as well but this on was on Deuce, the Spaniard was growing in confidence in each game and he began to dominate finally taking the match 4-2.
Three left in the Mens Singles, Paul Drinkhall seeded and Andrew Baggaley and Liam Pitchford who have fought their way through the qualification and preliminary stages.
In the Womens singles, Hannah Hicks was the only qualification participant and she fought really strongly before going down 4-2 to Manka Fajmut of Slovenia a girl ranked more that 100 places ahead of Hannah. Only the seeded Kelly Sibley and Joanna Parker are left in the Womens Singles
There were also Mens Doubles preliminaries and Mixed Doubles first round matches today, round 1 of the Mens Doubles Preliminary saw the end of Danny Reed and Darius Knight in a tough 5 game battle with Bora Vang and Gencay Menge of Turkey and the Second Preliminary round saw the departure of Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford against a strong Serbian pair of Pete Zolt and Bojan Crepulja, Paul and Liam lost in 4 games.
The Mixed Doubles Main event started as the last event of the day and all three girls and their partners had qualified to this stage. Hannah Hicks and Danny Reed faced a strong German duo in Ruwen Filus and Kathrin Muhlbach, they lost in 4 straight games but the English pair could well have taken a game or two. The other two pairs are still standing, an 11-9 in the seventh win over an awkward Thailand pair, took Paul Drinkhall and Joanna Parker through while Darius Knight and Kelly Sibley were relatively untroubled by Eric Berner and Marte Aasebo of Norway winning in 4 straight games
The contest starts in earnest tomorrow when the top 96 seeds in both Mens and Ladies Singles join the fray, the matches for tomorrow are listed below after the results and everybody will have hard contests the most interesting of which is a meeting between Paul Drinkhall and the no 8 seed Vladimir Samsonov of Belarus.
Results
Mens Singles
Qualification
Group 11
BAGGALEY Andrew ENG beat ADEMAJ Rrahman KOS 4-0 (ADEMAJ Rrahman then disqualified)
Group 37
KNIGHT Darius ENG beat POWELL David AUS w/o
Group 48
PITCHFORD Liam ENG beat SAITI Agon MKD 11-6, 13-11, 9-11, 11-8, 11-6
Group 55
REED Daniel ENG beat WANG Timothy USA 11-4, 14-12, 11-7, 11-8
1st Preliminary Round
CIOCIU Traian LUX lost to REED Daniel ENG
6-11, 11-8, 11-13, 5-11, 11-7, 6-11
CREPULJA Bojan SRB lost to PITCHFORD Liam ENG
4-11, 12-10, 11-9, 6-11, 9-11, 15-13, 7-11
TIRSELT Mounaim MAR beat KNIGHT Darius ENG
6-11, 11-7, 7-11, 2-11, 12-10, 11-9, 11-3
2nd Preliminary Round
CARNEROS Alfredo ESP beat REED Daniel ENG
3-11, 11-13, 11-6, 11-9, 11-7, 11-3
BAGGALEY Andrew ENG beat MINO Alberto ECU
11-7,12-10,11-8,12-10
TOMICKI Jaroslaw POL lost to PITCHFORD Liam ENG
11-9, 11-13, 6-11, 11-9, 4-11, 1-11
Womens Singles
Qualification
Group 52
FAJMUT Manca SVN beat HICKS Hannah ENG 11-9, 11-9, 6-11, 3-11, 11-5, 11-6
Mens Doubles
1st Preliminary Round
ABO YAMAN Zaid/ALDMAISY Zeyad JOR lost to KNIGHT Darius/REED Daniel ENG
8-11, 4-11, 6-11
2nd Preliminary Round
DRINKHALL Paul/PITCHFORD Liam ENG beat OLIVARES Felipe/RODRIGUEZ Alejandro CHI
11-9, 11-7, 11-7
MENGE Gencay/VANG Bora TUR beat KNIGHT Darius/REED Daniel ENG
8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 8-11, 11-6
3rd preliminary Round
DRINKHALL Paul/PITCHFORD Liam ENG lost to CREPULJA Bojan/PETE Zolt SRB
9-11, 11-81, 6-11, 8-11
Mixed Doubles
1st Round
REED Daniel/HICKS Hannah ENG lost to FILUS Ruwen/MUHLBACH Kathrin GER
2-11, 9-11, 8-11, 9-11
CHAITAT Chaisit/KOMWONG Nanthana THA lost to DRINKHALL Paul/PARKER Joanna ENG
8-11, 11-5, 12-10, 10-12, 10-12, 11-7, 9-11
BERNER Eric/AASEBO Marte NOR lost to KNIGHT Darius/SIBLEY Kelly ENG
6-11, 8-11, 3-11, 8-11
Matches tomorrow
Mens Singles – Round of 128
NIWA Koki JPN v PITCHFORD Liam ENG – 14:00 Table 30
SAMSONOV Vladimir BLR v DRINKHALL Paul ENG – 15:30 Table 4
BAGGALEY Andrew ENG v MACHADO Carlos ESP – 15:30 Table 14
Womens Singles – Round of 128
SIBLEY Kelly ENG v SONG Ma Eum KOR – 14:00 Table 19
PARKER Joanna ENG v ISHIGAKI Yuka JPN – 14:00 Table 23
Womens Doubles – round of 64
FUKUHARA Ai/ISHIKAWA Kasumi JPN v PARKER Joanna/SIBLEY Kelly ENG 17:15 – Table 3
Mixed Doubles – round of 64
CHEUNG Yuk/JIANG Huajun HKG v DRINKHALL Paul/PARKER Joanna ENG – 10:45 Table 5
HUANG Sheng-Sheng/HUANG Yi-Hua TPE v KNIGHT Darius/SIBLEY Kelly ENG – 10:45 Table 6