German Open
The first rounds of matches were kind to Wales with 3 wins and 1 loss. Adam Robertson started the proceedings with a fine 4-3 win against Spanish/Chinese defender Wang Wei. Ryan Jenkins followed with another notable win against the Austrian youngster Plattner 4-1. Naomi continued the good results with a close 4-2 win against Molner of Serbia. After being 3-0 up and 10-8 things started to get edgy, but Naomi steadied the ship and made sure of the win. Patrick was unable to carry on the winning streak against the inform Steffan Mengel from Germany losing 0-4.
In the second round of matches Adam was unable to close out the match against Kim Min Sook of Korea after being 3-2 up and finally losing 3-4. Ryan had a small chance against ex-European silver medallist Torben Wosik being 1-0 up but lost the next 3 sets 11-9. That left him with a mountain to climb and he eventually lost 1-4. Patrick played better against the Ukraine player Diduhk, but he was too good for him at this time and he went down 0-4. Naomi was our sole survivor in the singles but came up against the higher ranked Pavlovich of Belarus. She was unable to control her power and lost 0-4.
Later that evening in the doubles events, Ryan and Adam beat the young pairing of Simon Gauzy and Thomas Lebreton of France 3-0 to progress. Unfortunately for Wales that is where it ended as they lost to the experienced German stars, Lars Hilscher and Zoltan Fejer-Konnerth 0-3. Naomi and Irish number 1 Liu Na lost to a Russian and Belrus pairing in their first round doubles match 0-3.
Patrick was left to fly the flag in the U21 event but didn’t bring out his best stuff until he was too far behind. He was down in all 3 sets against Soderlund of Sweden but brought the sets close before letting it go, to lose 0-3. Against Menge of Turkey he played much better to win 2 sets and was 8-8 in the 5th but just couldn’t pull past the winning line. He leant a vast amount for being in and around the best players in the world throughout this event.