3/28/2010        2010 Italian Junior & Cadet Open - ITTF Premium Junior Circuit

Success for the top two seeds, Belgium’s Lauric Jean and Slovenia’s Jan Zibrat, as matters commenced in the Boys’ Singles event at the Italian Junior Open in Lignano on Saturday 27th March 2010 but there were problems lower down the order of merit.

Germany’s Christoph Schmidl, the no.3 seed, Belgium’s Julien Indeherberg, the no.5 seed and the latter’s colleague Ludovic Bierny, the no.7 seed, all experienced heartaches.

All three experienced defeats but at the end of the day Julien Indeherberg survived but for Christoph Schmidl and Ludovic Bierney there was no happy ending to proceedings.

Second Round Place Secured
Meanwhile, for the remaining players amongst the top eight – Belgium’s Cédric Nuytinck, France’s Benjamin Brossier and Hungary’s Gergely Perei – a place in the second round of the Boys’ Singles event was secured.

Group Defeat, Main Draw Success
In the qualification group stage,Julian Indeherberg had suffered defeat at the hands of Germany’s Florian Wagner; both beat Italy’s Federico Baciocchi and Romania’s Razvan Galatan, so both progressed to the main draw.

However Julien Indeherberg did not advance to his allotted fifth to eighth seeded place in the draw; instead he faced Florian Wagner’s colleague Christophe Schmidl, the no.3 seed.

On the receiving end of a surprise win in the group stage, Julien Indeherberg turned the tables by ending the progress of Christoph Schmidl, who unlike Indeherberg had experienced only minimal problems in the group stage.

Sadness for Belgium
Success for Belgium but there was sadness.

Ludovic Bierny, seeded no.7, having emerged in first place in his group, was beaten in a close seven games first round duel by Slovakia’s Samuel Novota.

Leading Names Progress
Similarly, in the Cadet Boys’ Singles event, the top two seeds – Hungary’s Tamas Lakatos and Italy’s Leonardo Mutti – both experienced very few problems but there were problems for Hungary’s Marton Szita and the Czech Republic’s Jakub Seibert, the no.3 and no.4 seeded players respectively.

Both emerged successful in the group stage of matters but both witnessed first round defeats.

Marton Szita was beaten by Singapore’s Tan Kiet whilst Jakub Seibert suffered at the hands of Romania’s Daniel Dan.

Problems
Also there were problems for Belgium’s Florian Lamiet and Mehdi Bouloussa of France; the former, seeded no.7, finished in first place in his group but was beaten in the opening round by Slovakia’s Ingemar Peter whilst Mehdi Bouloussa, seeded no.6, experienced defeat in the group stage but successfully negotiated the opening hurdle.

He finished in second place in the group losing to Croatia’s Filip Zeljo but in the main draw progressed; however, it was close. He needed the full five games to beat Tomislav Pucar, also from Croatia.

No Doubles Trouble
Problems for seeded players but no problems for the top two seeds and there were no problems for the top two seeds in the doubles events.

Belgium’s Lauric Jean and Cedric Nuytinck duly booked their quarter-final place in the Boys’ Doubles event as did the combination of Belgium’s Ludovic Bierny and Slovenia’s Jan Zibrat.

Similarly in the Cadet Boys’ Doubles event, Hungary’s Tamas Lakatos and Marton Szita plus the French partnership of Andrea Landrieu and Alexandre Robinot advanced smoothly to the round of the last eight.