Eurosib Russian Open
Notable Casualties
The Czech Republic’s Marek Klasek and Veronika Pavlovich
of Belarus were the notable casualties on the opening day
of play, Thursday 18th October 2007, at the Eurosib Russian
Open in St Petersburg, the latest stop on the ITTF Pro Tour.
In the qualification stage of the Men’s and Women’s
Singles events the two players, who had been on duty at the
World Team Cup in Magdeburg during the first week of October,
suffered defeats.
Both lost to aspiring teenagers; Marek Klasek, the seventh
highest world ranked male player on duty in the group stage
of the Men’s Singles event, was beaten by France’s
Abdel-Kader Salifou, whilst in the Women’s Singles event,
Veronika Pavlovich suffered at the hands of Ukraine’s
Margaryta Pesotska.
However, for the top two men on duty there were victories;
Russia’s Dmitrij Mazunov and Denmark’s Finn Tugwell
emerged successful but for the next two highly rated players
there were nervous moments. Both Croatia’s Roko Tosic
and Romania’s Andrei Filimon secured one victory and
suffered one defeat; games ratio was in their favour and thus
top place in their respective groups was the end result.
Meanwhile, in the Women’s Singles qualification event,
the top three world ranked women on view all succeeded without
due alarm.
There were victories for Germany’s Tanja Hain-Hofmann,
Poland’s Xu Jie and the Czech Republic’s Iveta
Vacenovska.
Also, there was a comfortable passage for a former ITTF Pro
Tour champion, China’s Li Nan. The winner of the Austrian
and Egyptian Opens in 2002, a year when she reached number
four on the ITTF Women’s World Ranking list, she experienced
few problems on her return to the international scene.
Absent since the Liebherr Croatian Open in January 2006 she
no longer held a world ranking and thus had to play in the
qualification rounds.
Furthermore, she is a realistic title contender; when she
won the Women’s Singles crown at the Austrian Open in
2002 she beat Singapore’s Li Jia Wei in the final.
In St Petersburg, Li Jia Wei is the defending champion and
number one seed.
|
"Source:
ITTF Press Release