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Beijing Olympics: Tops and Flops of the First Singles Round

First published on Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Last updated on Wednesday, August 20, 2008

ITTF Press Release

After the Olympic Team events, the men and women played on four tables match after match today. The sophisticated system in the Singles event best female players will only have to compete from tomorrow and the top seeded men from the day after tomorrow. The matches today were already contested and brought several surprises:

Tops

First Portuguese Victory in the Olympic Table Tennis History
Portugal is not known to be a table tennis superpower. However, there are three players competing in Beijing. It is the first time that the Iberians have players in an Olympic draw. While Thiago APOLONIA and Joao MONTEIRO lost their matches, Marcos FREITAS wrote Portuguese table tennis history. The youngest of the trio (20 years old) overcame Egypt’s El-Sayed LASHIN 4-1 and is the first Portuguese to win a table tennis match at Olympic Games.

African Hard Worker Recompensed for Extra Hours
Nigeria’s Segun TORIOLA is probably the best African player at the present time. Only ranked 115th in the ITTF World Ranking, the 33 year right-hander had to play the preliminary round. TORIOLA overcame the only US player David ZHUANG in the men’s draw with four games to three in the afternoon and later Portugal’s Joao MONTEIRO (no. 60) again with 4-3. ”I didn’t play so well this morning. I don’t know why. It’s the Olympics. The Olympics is different from another event in Table Tennis”, Segun TORIOLA said after the match. His opponent in the second round will be Jean-Michel SAIVE, Belgium.

Late Bloomer from the Czech Republic
Dana HADACOVA is nearly 25 years old, number 215 in the world and number three in her country. That is no reason for her to give up. After her unexpected last minute qualification for the Olympic Games, she is still able to surprise. Today HADACOVA beat Veronika PAVLOVICH (no. 83) from Belarus. “It’s just unbelievable. I’m so happy. Today I couldn’t do short service, but I kept playing and when I won the fourth game, I believed I could win.”

Flops

Swedish Deception
Jens LUNDQVIST may not be as talented as his compatriots Jan-Ove WALDNER or Jörgen PERSSON, but for sure he is a player meant to survive the first round of an Olympic tournament. Today LUNDQVIST lost to Australia’s William HENZELL. The irony of the story is that HENZELL has been living and practicing for many years in… Sweden.

Black Day for French Men – Chila Retires
The afternoon session was pure sadness for the French players. Christophe LEGOUT lost 4-2 against Vietnam’s DOAN Kien Quoc, who is 171 ranks behind the Frenchman in the ITTF World Ranking.

The second French player, Patrick CHILA, was on the way to the second round of the Men’s Singles event. However, CHILA’s opponent Janos JAKAB proved a good spirit at his first Olympic Games. The 22 year old Hungarian won 11-9 in the seventh game. CHILA said after the match: “It is the first time in my career that I have lost from 3-0 lead. He played some really crazy points and it was all up in the air at 3-3 and he just came trough. I’m really disappointed; I’m 39 years now and it was my last international game, so it wasn’t the best way to finish.”

Russian Women Eliminated
None of Svetlana GANINA, Irina KOTIKHINA and Oksana FADEEVA will play the second round of the Women’s Singles event. KOTIKHINA lost 3-4 to Australia’s MIAO Miao, FADEEVA 0-4 against Italy’s STEFANOVA Nikoleta and GANINA could not even play due to an injury. What a deception for the host of the 2010 World Table Tennis Championships!

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Beijing Olympics: Tops and Flops of the First Singles Round

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