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Top Topics:
- Europe Top12 + Slovenian Open: review
- Olympia 2008: Interview J.M Saive: ”We should not be treated like that”
- WTTC: Germany´s teams with a lot of self-confidence on their way to China
Material intro :
News:
Europe Top 12:
Bronze medals for “Mr. Constant” Jean-Mi and upward climber Dudu
Jean-Michel Saive, Wu Jiaduo and Elke Wosik as andro players took part at the European Top12 2008, Frankfurt, and two of them reached the semi-final.
Once more, the 9.000 spectators became enthusiastic by the athletic game and the will to win of Jean-Michel Saive at the Frankfurter Ballsporthalle. Because of his tactical cleverness and his tireless fight he stood up to the smart playing Spaniard He Zhiwen in the groups, so that his following defeat against Dimitrij Ovtcharov resulted into a second group place and the quarterfinal.
At this stage, the Belgian completely controlled Zoran Primorac from Croatia. Thereby the spectators were definitely supporting the charismatic fighter Jean-Mi, being finally stopped in semi-final by later champion Werner Schlager.
He commented his third place just with three words and a whimsical grin: “Not bad, or?” Furthermore the andro-star established a record, which could be held for eternity: 19 times in a row, Jean-Michel Saive participated at the European Top12 tournament, much more often than any other player in the history of this traditional European ranking tournament. “At my first participation 1990 in Hannover, we had to play the first time in groups”, Jean-Mi remembered. “I never played the old system “dog eat dog””. If this system would still exist, Wu Jiaduo would have probably reached a better result than just the third place. Germany’s No.1 achieved a remarkably good performance and won against Viktoria Pavlovitch (Belarus), Daniela Dodean (Romania) and Tamara Boros (Croatia) without loosing any set.
Also in the semi-final Dudu was able to offer a great resistance against later champion Li Jiao (Netherlands) . “I definitely had a chance to win”, Dudu made up the balance. In the third set at 10:9 and in the fifth set at 8:5 leading, Wu Jiaduo missed her chances and so at the end the result was 1:4 against her.
After all andro-star Wu Jiaduo has all reasons to be satisfied. In Frankfurt she was able to show her impressive progress: athletically upgraded, clearly faster footwork, more power and mentally much stronger than one year before. Dudu is the upward climber of the year, and in this shape the 30-year old German has good opportunities in the foreseeable future to win on the European stage not only medals but also titles.
The second German participant at the Top12, Elke Wosik lost a bit unlucky already in the preliminary round of the tournament. Together with Austrian Liu Jia and Luxemburgian Ni Xia Lian the andro player probably had the most tricky group. After a 1:4 defeat against Liu Jia Elke should have win with 4:1 against 3 times champion Ni Xia Lian to reach the quarterfinal. She was already leading 2:1, but then the Luxemburgian could tied up to 2:2 score and then when enthusiasm was gone, at the end Elke could hardly be happy about her 4:2 victory.
Slovenian Open:
A beat of the drum from Alexei Liventsov
The first ProTour tournament of the year 2008 was won by number one seeded player Vladimir Samsonov, but the biggest surprise at the Slovenian Open were made by an andro player: Alexei Liventsov found his way from the preliminary group to the main draw , were he beat Danes Finn Tugwell 4:3 and after that he won in a spectacular way against Chen Weixing to reach the last sixteen. “ Until that day I have nearly always lost against defenders on this level: twice to Gionis, twice to Shetinin and once to Joo See Hyuk. Because of that I was also surprised”, noted the 26-year old. His tactic against Chen Weixing:” I have tried to win the point directly with first two fast topspins. That worked out well. “ It sounds simple, but the way Liventsov, who plays with andro Blax OFF and C.O.R. 2 Supersponge on the forehand and C.O.R. 2 on the backhand, did it was imposing.
The defender from Austria, No.34 of the World Ranking, had directly to recognize two times, the great shape of Liventsov. In the double competition the young Russian player succeeded together with his partner Igor Rubtsov first against the Croatian double Primorac/Gacina and later against Austria’s double Chen Weixing/Robert Gardos by 4:1 as well. Also in the quarterfinal the underdogs showed an excellent performance and beat the Swedish combination Gerell/Lundquist with 4:3 before they entered the semi-final. At that stage Liventsov/Rubtsov were finally stopped by their compatriots Mazunov/Smirnov – but here they lost narrow: after a 0:3 start, Liventov/Rubtsov achieved a 3:3, but they finally had to admit the cleverness of the Vice-European Champions from Courmayeur 2003. “ Pity, in the final set we had a bad start and were down 1:5, then we came back to 5:5, but that was not enough”, reported Liventsov. At the end, he was dead on his feet: ”I have never played so many matches at a Pro Tour tournament like I did in Slovenia, four singles and five doubles.”
Every endeavour has been paid off. As number 188 of the World Ranking, Alexei Liventsov went to Slovenia and until now this tournament was the most successful one of his young career. Because of his victories against Tugwell and Chen Weixing, Liventsov climbed up 46 places in the February World Ranking. A huge step forward, but doubtless deserved: the Dane was 115 places, the Austrian actually 154 places ahead Liventsov in the World Ranking.
