by Wade Townsend
Girls’ Doubles
Team Asia has ensured they will be taking gold in Cadet Girls’ Doubles as the continent put on a dominating display this morning in Vodafone Arena.
Huang Yingqi and Soma Yumeno were largely untroubled by North America’s Amy Wang and Rachel Sung. Despite dropping the opening game, it was smooth sailing in the next three games as they took control of the match.
Their opponents in the final will be teammates Hanna Ryu and Diya Chitale. Ryu and Chitale cruised to the final with a straight games win over Latin America’s Valentina Rios and Livia Lima. The surprise semi finalists just couldn’t get in to the match. With a win this convincing they may go in to the final as favourites.
Boys’ Doubles
Team Asia couldn’t guarantee a double gold medal, as Europe’s Martin Friis and Csaba Andras upset the seeding as they defeated no.2 seeds Kazuki Hamada and Park Gyeongtae. It was a five game thriller with Team Europe notching up the win 13-11 in the final game.
Their opponents will be from Team Asia, as top seeds Niu Guankai and Feng Yi-Hsin didn’t blink as they saw off Europe’s Maksim Grebnev and Olav Kosolosky. And it won’t be the only doubles final Niu will find himself in today in Fiji…
Mixed Doubles
Meanwhile, everybody’s favourite event, the Mixed Doubles, has found its finalists.
The partnership of Niu Guankai and Jamila Laurenti has kept its momentum going and they have their eyes firmly set on gold. They made short work of Edward Ly and Yumeno Soma. The China/Italian combination haven’t been pushed to a third game yet.
The duo of Olav Kosolosky and Benita Zhou hadn’t dropped a game heading in to the semi final, but that quickly ended. Diogo Ilva and Ryu Hanna won the semi final encounter 2-1 and booked place in the final against Niu and Laurenti.
