The second seeds in the men’s event, England, have booked their spot in the quarterfinals by defeating Sweden 4-1. Toby Penty had a challenging opening game against Centre of Excellence star, Felix Burestedt.
Both players have shown that they can be fast starters here in France from their previous matches, however, it was Penty who took the opening game. But then all of this momentum seemed to disappear in the second game, with the match swinging back to the Swedes favour. When quizzed on this after the match, Penty said.
-The second game really got away from me. His level and speed definitely improved, and I kept going with where I was in the first. I rested on my laurels a little bit and had the same problem against Raul (Must), where I played a really good first game. I need to work on keeping my intensity. Today Raj (Ouseph) came on for the third game and went a bit more angry style, which you do not normally see from him, but that is what I needed.
Penty went on to win the match 21-18, 7-21, 21-13. Sharing what was spoken about in the interval before the deciding game, Penty explains.
-We just talked about the tactics, especially at the front of the court. Also, I needed to be more ready each time before the serve. Especially when I lost the point, not to go too within myself.
England now looks towards the knockout stages, with hopes to emulate or go one better than the silver medal in Kazan two years ago. Penty takes a calm approach when thinking about being one of the favourites to medal.
-Yeah, I suppose so. But it is a changing team. Raj (Ouseph) is on the coaching bench, Chris Langridge isn’t here, unfortunately, and we have got a lot of young players here. Yes, we are second seeds and we expect big things from ourselves, but we are also aware that it is a team in transition as well.
For the full list of fixtures and results, click here.