At the European Youth Championships this morning, Ireland’s No.1 Ranked Junior and Senior player Paul McCreery progressed to the last 64 with a 4 : 0 (8 5 11 5)victory over Petr Handl of the Czech Republic. McCreery will be delighted to have set up a 2nd round encounter with Luka Fucec of Croatia. Fucec is a dangerous player, ranked just below McCreery in the European Rankings. Fucec recently qualified for the Youth Olympic Games and has already won a Silver medal in the Junior Boys Team event as part of the Croatian National Team. Fucecd has never faced Irish opposition before, and tomorrow is sure to be a stern test of his credentials.
In yesterday’s evening Singles, Ashley Robinson had a tough Austrian opponent Christian Wolf and after two close sets at the start of the match he found himself 2-0 down 11-9 on both occasions . His opponent got stronger after that and eased his way to a 4-0 victory. Sam Logue was next in action against the Cypriot Number One Nikola PANAGIOTOU and he again lost the first set close but recoved to level the match at 1-1. His opponent then took control of the game playing aggressively and although the sets were close 11-7 in all of them, Sam struggled to get the initative in the game.
In the Mixed doubles McCreery and Givan record their first victory of the day of the day over a pair from Georgia/Armenia and then lost out 3-1 to a Polish duo. Robinson and O’Reilly lost in Round One to a Bosnian pair.
The only boys doubles match was Sam Logue and his Finnish partner, Pauli HIETIKKO played a pair from Kosovo and they won 3-0 for the right to play a Hungarian pair today.
In the Cadet Girls event, today’s 2nd Round sees Ashley Givan face Valerie Tischler of Austria, while Edel O’Reilly will play Ajila Kovac of Bosnia. Both girls will be hopeful of progressing to the 3rd Round.