Victor Svendsen created the biggest shock of the day beating third seed and one of Europe’s best performing men’s singles players this past twelve months, Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands.
The Dutch world number 32 has had the upper hand over his Danish opponent in all but one of their previous 5 meetings but today the Dane was quicker, sharper and wanted it more. Svendsen took the opening set 21-13 but even still the expectation was that Caljouw would settle and come back to win.
It was not to be for the Dutch number 1 who looked off the pace throughout and Svendsen ran out a deserved winning 21-17 in the second game.
Fresh from his success at the English nationals Toby Penty showed no ill effects of lifting that title as recently as last Sunday evening. Penty was is solid form today and easily saw of the challenge of Adam Mendrek in two games.
- I came straight here from English Nationals and yesterday just took the time out to recover ahead of today's match. I felt good in the match, it was hot but still I felt in control. Confidence is high after a decent 12 months and if I could justify my quarter final seeding this week at a minimum it would be a good weeks work.
Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour (pictured above) was happy to shake out the cobwebs and get her tournament under way and she did just that with a two game win over Katerina Tomalova.
The Scot had an up and down match but in the end her 21-12 21-11 win was a true reflection of her class and she now looks forward to a second round tie against old foe Mette Poulsen of Denmark.
- It was nice to get that one out of the way. Conditions are strange as I sometimes I could not predict the flight of the shuttle but onwards to the next round where things will get tougher against Mette as we have had a right few battles over the years.