Lucaz Mazur, Europe’s only para-badminton standing-category World Champion withdraws from the Spanish International through injury
The Spanish Para-Badminton International 2018 began today in Mallorca and the big news this morning was the withdrawal of the reigning SL4 men’s singles World Champion, Lucas Mazur of France.
Suffering a muscle strain, it seems the World Number 1 has been struggling to shake the injury and waited until yesterday to decide whether to risk playing this year’s first international tournament.
“I’ve withdrawn due to a small injury to my left leg (points to his hamstring), and I have decided, with the help of my staff, to withdraw to ensure I am ready for the next tournament”
“It happened in training 10 days ago. I’ve waited until now to withdraw as the injury is not serious, and we hoped I would be able to participate. But trying to train this week, I felt that it would not be possible to compete, and so we decided to stop”
“I hope to recover in time to play in Dubai (in 5 week’s time), it is very important for me to play Dubai and the Asian tournaments later this year and so I feel I should withdraw now to better prepare for those. The European Championships in France later this year will be the priority bien sur.”
We wish Lucas a speedy recovery and hope to see him in the Dubai Para-Badminton International in April.
Read: Logos for “Para”-llel World Championships 2019 are ready
Highlights of the day in Spain
Performance of the day goes to Finland’s Harri Isomaeki, in the Wheelchair Class 2 (WH2) Men’s Singles, bravely coming through a gruelling 3 game thriller 18-21, 21-13, 21-18 against the Brazilian 3/4 seed Romulo Junio Soares, in one of the longest matches of the day.
Whilst most of the opening round matches went to script today, there was almost an upset in the SS6 Men’s Singles, when former world number 1 Niall McVeigh (IRE) lost his opening match to Andrew Martin (ENG) 16-21, 21-16, 17-21. In the ‘group-of-death’ McVeigh then went on to play Chu Man Kai (HKG) in a must-win match for the the 3/4 seed. In another epic, the Irishman came through 21-16 in the 3rd game to keep his tournament alive. Anything can now happen in that group!
You can read about Europe’s hopes for medals at the Spanish Para-Badminton International in our article earlier this week, International Para-Badminton Stars Launch their 2018 Campaign in Spain.
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