The Yonex Polish International kicked off today at the purpose built Matchpoint sports club in Wroclaw the fourth largest city in Poland.  Qualification threw up few surprises but the Ukrainian young guns showed their potential as both Natalya Voytsekh (pictured) and Artem Pochtarev came through a difficult qualification to advance to the main draw.

Both Voytsekh and Pochtarev, members of the Ukrainian bronze medal winning team from the European Juniors last year, displayed immense maturity in what is a tough qualification tournament in this an Olympic qualifying year.
Both players have clearly benefited from a full season on the senior tour and look completely at home battling it out against much more experienced opposition on the European tour.

Pochtarev came through two matches against local Polish opposition and looked poised and mature on court to book a spot in round one where he will play 7th seed Vladimir Ivanov of Russia.

Voytsekh was even more impressive as she had to come through the final qualification round against team mate, and another one of the current production line of quality Ukrainian youngsters, Liza Zharka. Both Ukrainians were the class athletes on view in the women’s singles qualification and the luck of the draw on this occasion went against Zharka.

It was also a good day for the Russian pair of Gabdullina and Golovanova as both girls advanced to the main draw with easy qualification victories as was expected.

The home support had good reason to be happy also as the young Polish singles duo of Swist and Wojtkowska advanced to tomorrow’s main draw and are sure to get valuable experience playing at this high level.

The main rounds kick off at 9am local time with full complement of games free to watch on Badminton Europe TV. Just log in and register by clicking HERE

For all results click HERE

Article and image by Mark Phelan (Live in Wroclaw)