2024-07-29 21:19:29
European table tennis champion Sofia Polkanova reached the last 16 in the individual competition at the Paris Olympics, so it is at least possible to finish ninth like she did at Tokyo 2021. The 29-year-old player defeated Portugal’s Jenny Shao 4:2 (-10.9, 7.3, -12.7) in the final match of the “Paris Sud” on Monday. Polkanova’s quarterfinal will be against the winner of the match between Romania’s Bernadette Sochi and Ukraine’s Margarita Pesotska on Wednesday.
Against Chinese-born Shao, Polkanova extended the lead to 5:3. In the last match between the two, the Iberian women’s football team won the Team World Cup; before that, Polkanova maintained victory in the Champions League. This time the Austrian number one temporarily missed out on a successful start. After falling behind 0-2, Polkanova led 8-2 in the first set, but Shao Jiani was once close, and then used the ball in front of the net to resolve the set point and score first. In the same evenly matched situation, Polkanova equalized the score on the first set point.
From then on, things got better for Austria’s remaining table tennis player after Daniel Harbesson was eliminated from the men’s singles match in the morning. Polkanova won two sets, 11:7 and 11:3, leading 3:1. The cheers from the French audience severely tested her concentration. At a nearby table, local hero Alexis Lebrun scored a victory worth celebrating. The hall was quieter after the game, but Polcanova couldn’t close the bag just yet.
The world No. 23 missed two match points. Shao Jiani, who did not play in the fifth set, used the second game to chase the score to 2:3. She will definitely have to deal with good friends in the next round. Together with fifth seed Sochi, the 15th seed becomes a double European champion at the 2022 Munich Championship. Xoch is ranked 10th in the world rankings, so will at least have some favor in the tournament. Polkanova played for a while with Pesotska at Froschberg Linz.
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