Spain’s Marcela Quinteros, who won a triple crown at the Victor Denmark Para-Badminton 2018 tournament recently, suffered an early blow at the VYV BWF European Para-Badminton Championships 2018 yesterday in Rodez, France.
Quinteros capitulated to top seed Emine Seckin (Turkey, featured image) in just 26 minutes, 21-13 21-13, in the Women’s Singles Wheelchair (WH 2) Group A match.
There are three groups – A, B and C – each with three players, in this category. The top two players from each group progress to the quarter-finals along with two ‘byes’.
Group B saw another player from Turkey, Narin Uluc, win her opening battle, 21-11 21-19, against England’s Sharon Jones-Barnes. In Group C, Scotland’s Fiona Christie had it easy over Italy’s Marcella Li Brizzi 21-7 21-2.
In the Women’s Singles WH 1 category, top seed Karin Suter-Erath (Switzerland) enjoyed a quick 21-9 21-7 result over Finland’s Mirka Seuina Rautakoski in Group A, while in Group B, second seed Valeska Knoblauch outclassed Switzerland’s Sonja Haesler 21-5 21-8.
In the Men’s Wheelchair (WH 1), top seed Thomas Wandschneider (Germany) blew away the challenge of France’s Patrick Faure, 21-1 21-2, in just 22 minutes. Other winners in this category included Finland’s Timo Villanen and Markus Lehto and Russia’s Yuri Stepanov.
Israel’s Amir Levi (WH 2) won all his three matches on the day. Levi and compatriot Nina Gorodetzky beat David Toupe/Emmanuelle Ott (France) in a hard-fought contest in Mixed Doubles WH 1/WH 2, 18-21 21-18 21-14. The Israel pair then faced Connor Dua-Harper (England) and Marilou Maurel (France) and raced to victory in 20 minutes, 21-4 21-14.
Levi returned for his Men’s Singles Group A match and routed Finland’s Riku Vihreasaari 21-7 21-5. Gorodetzky also won her singles opener in Group C against France’s Audrey Bellia-Sauvage 21-11 21-6.
In the Standing Lower (SL 4) class, Men’s Singles top seed Lucas Mazur (France) eased his way past Germany’s Nils Boening 21-11 21-8. Mazur also won his Mixed Doubles opening match with Faustine Noel in the SL 3/SU 5 category, over Jan-Niklas Pott (Germany)/Helle Sofie Sagoy (Norway) 21-13 21-14.
The Short Stature (SS 6) Men’s Singles category saw one of the closest matches of the day, with Ireland’s Andrew Moorcroft beating Russia’s Alexander Mekhdiev 19-21 21-19 21-19. Other winners included top seed Jack Shephard, Krysten Coombs and third seed Isaak Dalglish (all England).
In the Women’s Singles section, top seed Rachel Choong and Rebecca Bedford (both England), Oliwia Szmigiel (Poland) and Irina Borisova (Russia) enjoyed straight games victories in their opening matches.
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