Commanding display

Dominant from start to finish Chinese Taipei’s Wang Tai-Wei stormed through his opening Group 36 fixture, prevailing over Mexico’s Layan Neumann by a 3-0 margin (11-5, 11-5, 11-3).

Jules Rolland responds

France’s Jules Rolland was forced to recover from a slow start in his opening group stage encounter, fighting back from a game down on his way to a 3-1 win at the expense of Ukraine’s Yuriy Nadolnyy (8-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-7).

Belgrade runner-up starts strong in Otocec

Silver medallist at the recent ITTF Challenge event in Belgrade, Abdel-Kader Salifou has made a fine start to his qualification campaign in Otocec with the French star beating Italian opponent Alessandro Baciocchi 3-0 (11-8, 11-7, 11-4).

Mixed results for North American hopefuls

USA’s Tian Ye and Zhang Kai opened their campaigns with winning displays, successfully accounting for Filip Cipin (10-12, 11-5, 11-9, 11-9) and Siddhesh Pande (12-10, 11-9, 12-10). However, fellow North American Matthew Lehmann didn’t fare as well with the Canadian losing out to Andrei Putuntica across four games (11-6, 10-12, 11-2, 11-4).

Convincing win for Haruna Ojio

Haruna Ojio has established the early advantage in Group 25 with the Japanese player negotiating her opening encounter in convincing style, beating Denmark’s Izabell Norlem in straight games (11-3, 11-2, 11-2).

Fine start for French competitors

France’s Oceane Guisnel and Marie Migot are off to the perfect start in their respective groups, posting 3-0 victories over Ines Diendorfer (11-9, 11-8, 11-7) and Karolina Mynarova (11-5, 19-17, 11-7).

Ana Tofant strikes first for hosts

The first Slovenian to emerge victorious in Otocec is Ana Tofant: facing opposition from Romania’s Arina Singeorzan in Group 7, Tofant needed just three games to put the host nation on the board (12-10, 11-9, 11-2).

Qualification begins

The opening day of qualification at the Seamaster 2019 ITTF Challenge Slovenia Open is here – take a detailed look at the day’s schedule below: