EMWTC 2018: day 2 results
The European Men’s and Women’s Team Championships are underway in the capital of Tatarstan. On February 14, the contenders competed in the second round of the group stage. It came as no surprise that the favourites were on the winning side and strengthened their positions in the groups. However, a historic moment happened. The men’s team of Greenland earned a point for the first time during the Championships.
The morning sessions of Day 2 showed no tough fight. The winners of 14 games whitewashed their opponents. The women’s teams from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, Bulgaria and France pulled out the wins without much effort. In the men’s event, Finland, Estonia, England, Denmark, Germany and Italy claimed confident victories. The losing teams in the last two matches were able to take one point at least: the Bulgarian girls beat the Slovakians, 4-1, so did the Polish vs the Portuguese.
Russia came out on court in the evening session. The women’s team was to compete against Team Estonia. The coaches made a change in the roster of the home team compared to that of Day 1: Anastasiia Pustinskaia substituted Natalia Perminova. She defeated Getter Saar in three games. Earlier Evgeniya Kosetskaya had brought one point to the Russians: she gained the upper hand over Kristin Kuuba with a score of 2-0. Team Estonia could not brace themselves and lost the next three matches.
Whitewashes were a hallmark of Day 2: there were eight more similar outcomes in the evening session. The Danish women’s team had no trouble in the encounter against Iceland, Team Ireland won against Israel, and Lithuania had no chance against Team Ukraine.
The Finnish whitewashed the Turkish players, the Norwegians beat the Latvians, and the French defeated the Australians. It seems the Ukrainian female contenders were so inspired by their men’s win that they outplayed Lithuania (5-0). The Germans came out victorious against the opponents from Ireland with the same score. In the women’s tournament, Israel managed to score only a point in the game against Team Sweden.
In the men’s team event, the Iceland vs Hungary match was over with the score of 4-1. By the way, the latter played against Greenland and went down in history losing them a point, which became the first-ever point for this team at the European Championships. The women’s teams of England and Poland gained victories against the Czech Republic and Norway respectively by a wide margin. Men’s Team Russia appeared on court in the evening session to compete against Team Spain. The host team won without any problem, losing only a point to the opponents. In comparison with the last game, there was an interchange in the individual encounters: Anatoliy Yartsev, who had dropped a match the day before, did not play in the game, Russian team captain Vladimir Ivanov played as his substitute. The single point was earned by Spanish Luis Enrique Penalver, who outcompeted Sergey Sirant. It was a second victory in a row for Russians at this tournament. In another match of the same group, Team Bulgaria bounced back after losing the start match and gained the upper hand over Belgium (4-1). Thus, Day 2 was marked with no close wins, offering less tough struggles than Day 1.