May 2012

England and France as expected, Scotland and Germany with upsets!

The European Team Championships have been started in Nurnberg, Germany. England’s teams are favourites to win another double. The notable result of day 1 was in men's division 1, where Scotland's 3-1 win over 3rd seeds Italy. France started off with a comfortable 4-0 win over Finland.

In pool A favourites England cruised past Denmark 4-0 while the evening match on the ASB glass court was a delight for the home fans as Germany beat the higher-seeded Netherlands 3-1. Especially Germany’s No1 Simon Rosner (ri) performed excellent as he beat Dutch Laurens Jan Anjema (le) in straight games.

Pool A:
[1] ENGLAND bt [8] DENMARK 4/0
James Willstrop bt Kristian Frost Olesen 11-8, 11-8, 11-8
Nick Matthew bt Caspar Grauballe Nielsen 11-2, 11-4, 11-4
Daryl Selby bt Morten W Sorensen 11-4, 11-5, 7-11, 11-1
Tom Richards bt Thomas Pilak 11-1, 11-1, 11-1

[5] GERMANY bt [4] NETHERLANDS 3/1
Simon Rosner bt Laurens Jan Anjema 11-7, 12-10, 11-5
Raphael Kandra lost to Piedro Schweertman 13-11, 11-7, 11-13, 9-11, 10-12
Jens Schoor bt Sebastiaan Weenink 11-6, 11-6, 11-4
Andre Haschker bt Bart Ravelli 11-5, 11-6, 11-8

Pool B:
[2] FRANCE bt [7] FINLAND 4/0
Gregory Gaultier bt Olli Tuominen 11-8, 5-11, 11-2, 11-5
Thierry Lincou bt Matias Tuomi 11-4, 11-5, 11-6
Mathieu Castagnet bt Janne Jarvinen 11-2, 11-4, 11-6
Yann Perrin bt Jaakko Vahamaa 11-6, 11-8, 11-7

[6] SCOTLAND bt [3] ITALY 3/1
Alan Clyne bt Davide Bianchetti 9-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-7
Greg Lobban lost to Marcus Berrett 6-11, 3-11, 4-11
Chris Small bt Amr Swelim 4-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-7
Stuart Crawford bt Jose Facchini 9-11, 11-9, 12-10, 11-8

Results at the official ETC-site.