Jenkins brothers play a legend
For Wales it was the last day of competition, and one that was very healthy for development. With the girls in action in the morning’s play it was going to be a long day at the Cez arena in Ostrava. Naomi and Angharad unfortunately lost in the 5th set to a Luxembourg/Romanian combination. Chloe partnered Therese Andersen of Norway but they didn’t gel well enough to beat Turkey’s best doubles pairing.
It was then up to Ryan & Stephen to play the legend that is Zoran Primorac, who partnered Ivan Juzbasic in the doubles. Unfortunately he was injured and never made it to the table. They took the 4-0 win and progressed into the last 32 of Europe.
Naomi then started her campaign with an excellent 4-0 win against Karahodzina of Belarus to get into the last 64. She didn’t progress further however as she came up against one of the favourites of the tournament in Stefanona of Italy in the evening match. It was a very tight match with Naomi losing 9-11, 12-14, 5-11 and 9-11. Naomi was the last British female in the competition at that stage.
Steve played the injured Primorac in the men’s 2nd round as he was saving himself for it, and gave a good account of himself with the scores 9-11, 8-11, 4-11 and 5-11. The dream was over for Steve for another year. Patrick played European team champion Christian Suss of Germany in round 2 and again, it wasn’t all one way traffic. With some big forehands and backhands from the Tredegar lad, he had his opponent worried slightly. However it was the German who progressed into the last 64 with a 4-0 win.
Ryan was last up for the men and had chances against Pykov of Russia but after levelling at 1-1, it was all that was left in the tank and the Russian moved away to clinch the last 3 sets. All 3 Welsh men reached the last 128 of Europe.
Ryan and Steve then needed to up their games if they had any chance of competing with the choppers of European silver medallist Chtchetinine (Belarus) and his partner Sas Lasan (Slovenia). After Ryan & Steve won the first 11-9 the ‘hackers’ found their ranges and started lacing the spin into the Welsh duo. The final score was 1-3 but all sets were close.
Chloe played Ozler of Turkey in her singles match and played well but found the pace a little too hard so lost out 4-0. Angharad meanwhile played the highly ranked Dvorak of Spain. She wasn’t overawed in any way but didn’t manage to get the vital set that is needed to worry the top players and bring the match as close as it needs to be. Final score 0-4 to the Spanish star.