The Championships Move into the Maples Pavilion
Ten year old Gabriela Wilson sang the anthem of the United
States with ardour on the occasion of the opening ceremony
of the 2007 World Junior Table Tennis Championships (WJTTC).
At 3:35 p.m., ITTF President Adham Sharara declared the championships
officially as open.
The matches in the Roscoe Maples Pavilion of the Stanford
University begin with a cracker. The girls’ teams of
Japan and China face each other in one of the quarter final
matches. The matches yesterday and this morning all took place
in the Ford Center that is now the second playing hall.
Poland’s Girls Qualify for the Quarter-Finals...
The girls from Poland and Slovakia both had one victory and
one defeat after the first day of the World Junior Championships.
Thus the team match between the two Eastern European countries
was the decision about the qualification for the quarter-finals.
Poland’s Katarzyna Grzybowska was accordingly pleased
after she scored the third point for her team. "I was
very nervous today", she said. "It was a pretty
difficult match because of the importance for my team."
... as well as the French and Czech Boys
Thanks to a 3-1 victory over Turkey, Abdel-Kader Salifou and
his French team-mates reached the second stage. "We knew
we had to win and that we were favourites for this match",
he continued after the crucial match against Turkey’s
Jiang Pengfei with lots of ups and downs for him.
The other close decision of the day was the team match between
the Czech Republic and Poland. Both needed to win to qualify
for the main draw. The Czech eventually held the upper hand.
"In spite of the 3-0 scoreboard, the match was very
close", Czech's number three Frantisek Placek explained.
"I think we were just in a better shape than our opponents
today."
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"Source:
ITTF Press Release