Only a mere 3 hours previous to the start of the individual competition at #EU17C17 team Denmark were celebrating their 3-0 win over Turkey in the team event. Less than 2 hours into the individual event German pair Aaron Sonnenschein and Leona Michalski create a major upset beating the heroes of that Danish win Rasmus Espersen and Christine Busch in round 1 of the mixed doubles.
After sharing the opening games a lacklustre Danish pair were unable to recapture their form from earlier in the day and the German duo did not need a second invitiation to sieze the initiatve and win the match in three games.
“We were big underdogs for the match.” said Sonnenschein
“They look very tired and out of ideas and we played to our game plan and of course it is a big win for us to beat them. We are very happy with this win and hope we can move through some rounds.”
Serbian 7th seeds Sergej Lukic and Marija Sudimac also fell at the first hurdle. The Serbs had not been involved in the team event and Czech pair Vaclav Palan & Lucie Krpatova (pictured above) took full advantage of their knowledge of the hall and the Serbs nievity to advance to round two.
With only a select handful of singles rounds on day 1 the major talking point is if Christo Popov of France will be fit to play tomorrow after sustaining a minor injury early in the team competition. The Frenchman is hot favourite for the men’s singles title and is due to take to the courts in both doubles and singles tomorrow.
For all results from day 1 of the individual event in Prague at #EU17C17 click
HERE