A place in the main draw was secured but for Hong Kong, the top seeds in the Junior Boys’ Team event at the JOOLA 2013 Hungarian Junior and Cadet Open in Szombathely on Friday 8^th November, there was a shock in store.

After beating the Netherlands trio formed by Martin Khatchanov, Bas Hegerlink and Stellan Smid by three matches to nil; Lam Siu Hang, Li Hon Ming and Hung Ka Tak found life far more testing when facing and team formed by players from three different countries.

They suffered a three matches to two defeat against the combination comprising Thailand’s Padasak Tanviriyavechakul, Japan’s Takuto Izumo and Phinith Kongphet of Laos.

First and Second Places Team Advance
The effect was they finished in second place in the group and thus advanced to the main draw; in all team events, the winners and runners up in each group advance to the second stage.

Star of Show
Star of the show was Takuto Izumo; he beat both Li Hon Ming (11-8, 11-7, 11-9) and, with the overall score in the fixture level at two matches apiece, he accounted for Lam Siu Hang (11-9, 11-8, 8-11, 12-10).

The one remaining win for the victors came from Padasak Tanviriyavechakul in the fourth match of the fixture, he accounted for Li Hon Ming (12-10, 12-10, 11-7); whilst for Hong Kong, Lam Siu Hang beat Padasak Tanviriyavechakul by the very narrowest of margins in the opening match of the contest (7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 3-11, 15-13) and in the third match of the schedule, Hung Ka Tak defeated Phinith Kongphet (11-7, 11-9, 11-6).

Overcame Netherlands
Earlier in the day, in their opening fixture, Padasak Tanviriyavechakul, Takuto Izumo and Phinith Kongphet had beaten the Netherlands by three matches to nil and thus secured first place in the group.

No Problems for Hungary
Problems for the top seeds but there were no such difficulties for the other highly seeded team.

Hungary, the no.2 seeds, represented by Adam Szudi, Marton Szita and Nandor Ecseki recorded three-nil wins against both Ukraine (Vladyslav Totkalo, Kyrylo Samokysh, Bohdan Sinkevych) and Austria (Andreas Levenko, David Klaus, Thomas Grininger).

Swedes and Germans Impressive
Likewise Sweden ‘A’, the third seeds, with Henrik Johansson, Anton Kallberg and Viktor Gorman on duty posted three nil wins on both visits to the table as did Germany ‘A’, the fourth seeds. They fielded the trio of Qiu Lang, Qiu Dang and Kilian Ort.

Sweden ‘A’ overcame Norway (Espen Flaglien, Marcos Waerstad, Eskild Jorgensen) and Hungary ‘B’ (Gergely Sabjan, Bence Majaros, Mate Buckner); whilst Germany ‘A’ defeated Serbia (Marko Popovic, Ivor Katic, Nikola Marikovic) and Poland ‘B’ (Marek Badowski, Adrian Dugiel and Pawel Pioteowski).

First Places for Top Four
Meanwhile, in the Cadet Boys’ Team event; the top four seeds all secure first places.

It was a successful day for top seeds, the United States (Kunal Chodri, Allen Wang), as it was for the next three in the pecking order.

Romania (Rares Sipos, Cristian Pletea), France (Nolan Givone, Irvin Bertrand) and Singapore (Tay Ming Han Maxxe, Darren Loy Meng Hean) all topped their respective groups.

Team Events Conclude

The team events conclude on Saturday 9^th November.

Article by: ITTF - Ian Marshall

Photo by: Noemi Kondor