by Simon Daish

Defeat at the first hurdle for Deni Kozul and Uros Slatinsek, it was the second round which signalled Darko Jorgic and Bojan Tokic’s exits from the Men’s Singles event on Wednesday 4th April.

Ninth seed Darko Jorgic fell at the hands of Cristian Pletea, losing out to the young Romanian star across six games in the Round of 32 (13-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-4, 8-11, 11-8) with no.20 seed Bojan Tokic exiting to the Slovak Republic’s Lubomir Pistej (4-11, 13-15, 11-5, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9) to end Slovenia’s involvement in the draw.

Daniel Habesohn will play no further part in the Men’s Singles tournament after suffering a surprise defeat in the second round of the event: providing the upset was unseeded Hungarian contestant Bence Majoros, beating his eighth seeded opponent from Austria in five games (13-11, 11-7, 11-3, 9-11, 12-10) to book a meeting with 16th seed Wang Yang.

Spanish title hopeful Alvaro Robles, seeded third, was also eliminated on day one of the main event following his second round defeat to Japan’s Mizuki Oikawa (11-9, 5-11, 11-4, 10-12, 11-8, 11-5) while the no.4 seed Ng Pak Nam lost out to Chinese Taipei’s Chiang Hung-Chieh (11-7, 4-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9).

Early exits for a number of seeded players but it was a relatively straightforward day at the office for the top two seeds in Otocec with Liao Cheng-Ting and Gustavo Tsuboi successfully coming through the day’s action undefeated.

The Men’s Singles Round of 16 will take place from 11.50am (local time) on Thursday 5th April.