by Ian Marshall, Editor

After narrowly beating Poland’s Tomasz Kotowski, the no.16 seed in five games (9-11, 11-4, 11-4, 9-11, 11-6), he accounted for Romania’s Cristian Pletea, the no.3 seed and a player of the same age, in four games (7-11, 11-4, 11-7, 11-7) to reserve his place in the last eight.

Defeat for Cristian Pletea but he was the only casualty in the opening rounds of the Under 21 Men’s Singles event; however, there were close calls for Slovenia’s Darko Jorgic, the no.2 seed and for Aliaksandr Khanin of Belarus, the no.5 seed. Darko Jorgic proved the nemesis of Germany but he needed the full five games to beat Gerritt Engemann, the no.30 seed (4-11, 11-6, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9), prior to rather less dramatically ousting Nils Hohmeier, the no.2 seed (11-6, 11-5, 11-8).

Similarly, after accounting for Korea Republic’s Baek Hogyun, the no.29 seed, in four games (11-7, 10-12, 11-2, 11-8), Aliaksandr Khanin had to recover from a two games to nil deficit to end overcome the Czech Republic’s Jiri Martinko, the no.11 seed (8-11, 8-11, 11-3, 11-7, 11-7).

Otherwise, for the leading names it was an advance to the round of the last eight without alarm. Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yun-Ju, the top seed, enjoyed comfortable progress as did Austria’s Andreas Levenko and Denmark’s Anders Lind, in addition to the Polish duo of Marek Badowski and Patryk Zatowka.

At the quarter-final stage Lin Yun-Ju meets Aliaksandr Khanin, Anders Lind opposes Andreas Levenko; in the opposite half of the draw, it is Xu Haidong versus Patryk Zatowka, Marek Badowski in opposition to Darko Jorgic.

The Under 21 Men’s Singles event will be played to a conclusion on Wednesday 15th August.