RRI Sports Club: Table tennis

The Romanian table tennis player Elisabeta Samara has won the Qatar Open, which is a leg of the ITTF world circuit with 220,000 dollars prize money up for grabs.

Steliu Lambru, 25.02.2015, 13:22

The Romanian table tennis player Elisabeta Samara has won the Qatar Open, which is a leg of the ITTF world circuit with 220,000 dollars prize money up for grabs. In Doha, Samara defeated Germany’s Ying Han in the final, 4-nil, the sets score being 11-6, 12-10, 11-6, 11-9. In the first round, Samara eased past Dora Madarasz of Hungary, 4-3. In the round of last 16, Samara sealed a 4-nil win against I-Chen Lee of Taiwan, while in the quarterfinals the Romanian clinchéd a 4-2 win against Jiadou Wu of Germany. In the semi-finals, Elisabeta Samara had no problem outperforming South Korea’s Haeun Yang, 4-1. The Romanian player’s excellent run in Doha also brought her 26,000 dollars.

Another Romanian, Bernadette Szocs, conceded victory to Hong Kong’s Huajun Jiang in the very first round, 4-1, but Szocs braced up claiming the Under-21 title. The main draw’s fifth favourite to winning the Under-21 tournament, in the round of last 16, Bernadette Szocs sealed a 3-1 win against Yu-Chiao Hung of Taiwan, then in the quarterfinals the Romanian secured a 3-2 win against Hoi Kem Doo of Hong Kong, while in the semi-finals Szocs had no problem sealing a 3-nil win against Singapore’s Yihan Zhou.

The final saw the Romanian taking on another challenger from Singapore, Ye Lin, whom she defeated, 3-2. Her victory in the Under-21 tournament earned Bernadette Szocs 2,000 dollars. Bernadette Szocs said right after the final that she had a good match start, but then her adversary grew accustomed to her style, she knew how she would be playing and changed the tactics. She felt she had nothing to lose, because her adversary ranked higher than her in the standings anyway, and she did her best. Agerpres also quoted Bernadette Szocs as saying that all the contenders she took on in this competition were from Asia. She screamed for every ball she played to motivate herself, but she believes that also influenced her opponents, it intimidated them.

In the ITTF Czech Junior Open 2015, Romanian table tennis scored success a couple of times. In the cadet team challenge, Romania walked away with gold, defeating the Czech Republic in the final 3-2. In the women’s singles, Andreea Dragoman won the silver medal, and in the final she conceded victory to Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi, 3-nil. In the men’s singles of the junior category, Cristian Pletea secured a 4-3 win against the Hungarian Bence Majoros in the final. In the men’s junior category, Romania walked home with bronze as in the semi-finals it conceded victory to Japan, 3-1.