by Simon Daish
Florian Cnudde made a fantastic start to the Junior Boys’ Singles tournament, coming through the day’s action without suffering a single defeat.
Opening the event with a deciding game victory over Italy’s Matteo Mutti (11-8, 11-1, 11-13, 14-12, 8-11, 7-11, 11-5), Florian Cnudde went on to claim positive results against Romania’s Rares Sipos (11-7, 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 11-9) and Tobias Hippler of Germany (7-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-9, 11-6) to end the day with six points to his name.
While Matteo Mutti ended up on the wrong side of a seven games result against Florian Cnudde, the Italian representative’s disappointment was short lived as he prevailed in his remaining matches against Tobias Hippler (5-11, 11-9, 11-8, 9-11, 10-12, 11-5, 11-5) and French athlete Irvin Bertrand (11-8, 15-13, 6-11, 6-11, 14-12, 11-7).
Ioannis Sgouropolous entered the 2017 Europe Youth Top 10 as one of the favourites to lift the Junior Boys’ Singles trophy, and the Greek player will be happy with his day one performance in Worcester after he negotiated his opening three encounters with little difficulty.
First up for Ioannis Sgouropolous was a meeting with Joshua Bennett, who was a late replacement for Tom Jarvis who was forced to withdraw from the event due to illness, and much to the disappointment of the home fans the Greek competitor saw off his English opponent without dropping a game (11-2, 11-2, 11-3, 11-8).
With the wind in his sails Ioannis Sgouropolous continued to impress, registering victories over Bastien Rembert (11-8, 4-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-7) and Gerrit Engemann (11-13, 15-13, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-5) to end his day in perfect style.
Spectators were also treated to a fine day of Cadet Boys’ Singles action on the opening day of the tournament in Worcester, and there were fine performances from two players in particular.
Hungary’s Csaba Andras has made a 100% winning start to his campaign after he backed up his win against Dorian Zheng (11-2, 4-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-9) with positive outcomes from his fixtures against Daniel Rinderer (11-8, 11-3, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9) and Ethan Walsh (11-5, 11-7, 11-7, 11-8).
The other competitor who put in a fine display was Samuel Kulczycki, who also overcame England’s Ethan Walsh (11-13, 11-6, 9-11, 11-3, 11-9, 11-4) before picking up two further successes from his matches against Martin Friis (11-8, 7-11, 13-11, 11-4, 8-11, 11-4) and Olav Kosolosky (9-11, 11-5, 16-18, 11-6, 11-7, 11-9) of Sweden and Belgium respectively.
