by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Manager
Furthermore it was disappointment for Belarus. Maharyta Baltushite and Nadezhda Bogdanova experienced defeat at the hands of the host nation’s Ivana Malobabic and Petra Petek (12-10, 9-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9); Andrea Privalova and Daria Trigolos lost to Poland’s Natalia Bajor and Klaudia Kusinska (11-5, 11-4, 11-5).
Likewise, Chinese Taipei’s Huang Yu-Wei and Li Yu-Jhun suffered at the hands of Serbia’s Isabela Lupulesku and Dragana Vignjevic (13-11, 9-11, 11-5, 3-11, 11-8).
Meanwhile, in the Men’s Doubles qualification stage, the French combination of Andrea Landrieu and Romain Lorentz progressed to the main draw as did the Chinese Taipei pairing of Peng Wang-Wei and Sun Chia-Hung.
Both were amongst the most highly rated four partnerships; however, for two further pairings, expected to advance, there was defeat.
Romania’s Cristian Pletea and Rares Sipos lost to Israel’s Mathan Simon and Michael Tauber (11-6, 11-8, 6-11, 11-6) who maintained their form to beat the Slovakia combination of Samuel Kaluzny and Samuel Novota (11-7, 3-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9) to reserve their main draw place.
Likewise there was an early defeat for the Argentine combination of Horacio Cifuentes and Nicolas Galvano; they were beaten by the Spanish combination of Endika Diez and Carlos Franco (11-4, 9-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-8) who in turn lost to the French partnership of Alexandre Cassin and Alexandre Robinot (13-11, 11-9, 11-1).
Play in the main draw of both the Men’s Doubles and Women’s Doubles events commences on Thursday 12th April.
