Hot foot from the Swedish Open, Paul Drinkhall has crossed the Atlantic to compete in the Aquece Rio International Tournament – the test event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Yesterday Drinkhall, the tournament’s No 1 seed, progressed through to the semi-finals. He made short work of beating Mario Costa in the third round 4-0, (11-1, 11-4, 11-9, 11-2), and beat Humberto Manhani of Brazil 4-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-4, 11-3) in the quarter-finals.
Semi-final update – Paul has just defeated Cazuo Matsumoto 4-3 to progress through to the final. He will play the No 2 seed Monteiro (Brazil) at 10.30pm UK time.
“It is great to be part of the Rio test event and to be helping Paul prepare as completely as possible for the Games next year” said Head of Performance, Simon Mills. “He is using the time to develop his mental game and developing his confidence, recently boosted with his doubles performance in Sweden with Liam.”