Chile Open
Try, Try Again Works for Indian Star
The suffering for twenty-two year old Pathik Mehta came to
an end on Wednesday 23rd April 2007 at the Chile Open in Santiago.
In the qualification stage of the Men’s Singles event
he beat the powerful Frenchman, Abdel-Kader Salifou of France
in five games to make a fine start to his campaign.
A creditable victory and a relief for the man from Bhavnagar
on the west coast of India. “It’s the first good
result on the ITTF Pro Tour that I’ve had in the past
two years”, said Pathik Mehta. “I’ve come
close, very close but not won!”
It was the one upset on the opening day with matters proceeding
very much according to plan; for the highest world ranked
players in the qualification stage of the Men’s and
Women’s Singles events the only other player to suffer
heartache was Adrien Mattenet, also of France.
Against Russia’s Sergei Tyapkin he saved four match
points in the fifth game before winning the last two to secure
victory.
However, for the remaining highly rated players there was
success.
In the Men’s Singles event Jeong Sang Eun (Korea),
Vitaly Nekhvedovich (Belarus), Hidetodhi Oya (Japan) and Cazuo
Matsumoto (Brazil) all booked their places in the main draw
of the Men’s Singles event whilst for the women, the
leading ladies all succeeded on the their one and only visit
to the table.
It was a trouble free day for the Japanese trio of An Konishi,
Ayumi Etsusaki, Yuka Ishigaki, Misako Wakamiya and the Chinese
Taipei trio of Lee I-Chen, Yu Mei-Ju and Hsu Hui-Tsun.
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"Source:
ITTF Press Release