by Simon Daish

Qualifying group 31 contains Alina Arlouskaya of Belarus, Vida Sieu of Canada and Poland’s Natalia Bajor and it was the Belarusian contestant who picked up the early group points on offer as Alina Arlouskaya stood victorious in the opening match.

Alina Arlouskaya went into the tie against her unranked opponent Vida Sieu expected to get a positive result; the Belarus player made a blistering start to the match dropping just eight points across the opening three games, and before long the victory was confirmed by Arlouskaya after she took the fourth game to complete a powerful four-nil win (11-3, 11-2, 11-3, 11-6).

Another strong Belarusian display came courtesy of Daria Trigolos who fought off the challenge of Hungary’s Alexa Szvitacs across four games (11-8, 11-8, 10-12, 11-3, 11-9), while Alina Nikitchanka and Hanna Patseyeva also stood victorious for Belarus with respective victories over Anelia Lupulesku of Serbia (11-4, 11-8, 11-3, 9-11, 11-4) and Laura Pfefer of France (11-13, 11-7, 12-10, 11-9, 11-8) in groups five and 11.

All three of China’s competitors taking part in the Women’s Singles qualification stages enjoyed a perfect start to their qualifying group campaigns with Sheng Dandan, Li Jiayi and Che Xiaoxi all registering wins.

Sheng Dandan came out on top against home player Bernadett Balint with a straight games triumph (11-7, 11-8, 11-5, 11-8), and Li Jiayi also condemned a Hungarian competitor to an opening group match defeat by a similar games scoreline (11-9, 11-9, 11-4, 11-6). Che Xiaoxi leads group 32 following her four-nil success over Linda Bergström of Sweden, and the Chinese contestant can top the group with a victory against Russia’s Elena Troshneva in the day’s evening session.

There was a mixed start to the qualification campaigns for Hungarian representatives; Mercedes Nagyvaradi and Timea Peterman-Varga both picked up positive results beating French opponents Lucie Gauthier (7-11, 11-3, 11-5, 12-10, 11-8) and Leili Mostafavi (5-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-3, 11-3), however, there were defeats for the country’s Orsolya Feher and Edina Toth.