Joao Monteiro reached the quarter-finals at the Liebherr European Championships in St. Petersburg. The 25 year old Portuguese beat Germany’s Dimitrij Ovtcharov, bronze medallist one year ago.
Monteiro will now face Austria’s Robert Gardos. Gardos only played three games against Belgium’s Jean-Michel Saive before the latter had to give up due to an injury.
Neither Monteiro nor Gardos have won a medal in the singles event before. For the winner of their quarter-final match, a dream will come true.
Boll Outstanding, Samsonov Shaking
The two top seeded players of the Men’s Singles event both qualified for the quarter-finals. Germany’s Timo Boll was without merci against Slovenian Bojan Tokic. Vladimir Samsonov for his part prevailed only in the seventh game with 11-9 against Germany’s Bastian Steger.
In the quarter-finals Samsonov will be challenged by Austria’s Chen Weixing, Boll by Denmark’s Michael Maze. With Gardos, Chen and Schlager the Austrians have three players in the quarters.
Men’s Singles Round of the Last 16
SAMSONOV, Vladimir (BLR) - STEGER, Bastian (GER): 4-3
CHEN, Weixing (AUT) - KEINATH, Thomas (SVK): 4-3
GARDOS, Robert (AUT) - SAIVE, Jean-Michel (BEL): 4-1
MONTEIRO, Joao (POR) - OVTCHAROV, Dimitrij (GER): 4-2
SCHLAGER, Werner (AUT) - KUZMIN, Fedor (RUS): 4-1
LUNDQVIST, Jens (SWE) - HE, Zhi Wen (ESP): 4-1
MAZE, Michael (DEN) - SMIRNOV, Alexei (RUS): 4-1
BOLL, Timo (GER) - TOKIC, Bojan (SVN): 4-0
Women’s Singles Round of the Last 16
TROSHNEVA, Elena (RUS) - LI, Qiangbing (AUT): 4-3
TAN MONFARDINI, Wenling (ITA) - LI, Qian (POL): 4-2
PASKAUSKIENE, Ruta (LTU) - DODEAN, Daniela (ROU): 4-2
POTA, Georgina (HUN) - VACENOVSKA, Iveta (CZE): 4-1
PAOVIC, Sandra (HRV) - ZHU, Fang (ESP): 4-1
TOTH, Krisztina (HUN) - SAMARA, Elizabeta (ROU): 4-2
HU, Melek (TUR) - SKOV PETERSEN, Mie (DEN): 4-2
LIU, Jia (AUT) - XIAN, Yi Fang (FRA): 4-2
Women’s Doubles Semi-Finals
161 TOTH, Krisztina / POTA, Georgina (HUN) - 32 PAVLOVICH, Veronika (BLR) / FADEEVA, Oksana (RUS): 4-0
TAN MONFARDINI, Wenling / STEFANOVA, Nikoleta (ITA) - XU, Jie / PARTYKA, Natalia (POL): 4-3
Source: www.ittf.com
