by Simon Daish
Surely the standout player for the French team was Bastien Rembert, who came away from the tie with two wins: the first Azerbaijani competitor to fall victim to Rembert was Yang Xinyu (12-10, 11-8, 11-3) with Yu Khinhang suffering the same fate later in the match (11-8, 11-7, 6-11, 11-7).
Irvin Bertrand then stepped up to the task in the match decider, defeating Yang Xinyu by three games to nil (11-9, 11-5, 11-4) to send France through to the semi-finals at Azerbaijan’s expense.
Responsible for a dramatic full distance thriller on day three in Cluj-Napoca but in the quarter-finals Greece ended up on the wrong side of a 3-2 outcome despite a receiving a brace of wins via Ioannis Sgouropolous as Germany progressed to the last four.
Kay Stumper set defending Champions Germany on the right path with a four games win against Ioannis Damianis (3-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-6) before teammates Cedric Meissner and Fanbo Meng earned respective victories over Michail Diamantopoulos (11-5, 9-11, 11-3, 11-0) and Ioannis Damianis (11-6, 11-6, 12-10).
The Russian line-up of Lev Katsman, Vladimir Sidorenko and Maksim Grebnev held off a brave challenge from Italy, emerging with a 3-1 victory while Romania prevailed by the same score against Belgium.
