Two European nations got off to a great start on the quarterfinals’ day at YONEX German Open. Denmark’s Niclas Nøhr/Sara Thygesen and Bulgaria’s Stefani/Gabriela Stoeva are ready for the semifinals in Mülheim on Saturday.
The Stoeva sisters have played one hour-matches all week, but in the quarterfinal, they only played for 35 minutes. They had prepared for a much longer match, but their preparation for the fight against Jongkolphan Kititharakul and Rawinda Prajongjai from Thailand was on point. After 35 minutes, the Bulgarians won with the score: 21-11, 21-9.
- This is actually a pretty surprising result. We expected a tough match and that it would last more than one hour, Stefani said to Badminton Europe.
- If we are playing our game and staying focused, like we showed today, I think the only people standing in our way is ourselves. But we will try everything tomorrow and give it our best and try to stay focused like today and everything is possible in this tournament, Gabriela added.
The sisters are facing the 3rd seeds Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota from Japan as match no. 3 on court 1.
The Danes turned it around
Danish Niclas Nøhr and Sara Thygesen did not get to their semifinal in the same calm and collected state. After losing the first game 17-21, where the Danes were struggling to get their game up and running, they fought their way back to 24-22 in the second.
- We struggled a lot and we could not find our way back into the match because Jordan played so well and got the shuttles. But somehow, we managed to play a bit away from him and get Okavianti into the game and then we fought with all the we had, Nøhr said with relief after their thrilling quarterfinal.
Frustrating service situations and easy mistakes dominated the match, but the Danes turned it around and found their confidence to take the third game; 21-16.
- We still need to somehow find our way out of the service situation because today was really frustrating. But we found a way and we just need to find that a little bit earlier, so we don’t have to push it that far and go that far out. Of course, we got a boost from this and we will fight like we did today tomorrow, Thygesen explained.
Nøhr and Thygesen are will take on He Jiting and Du Yue of China as match no. 2 on court 1.
The semifinals of YONEX German Open start from 2:30 PM (local time), find the order of play by clicking here.