03/08/2019 23:30
Two Dutch and two Slovenian teams book semi-final spots in Ljubljana
2019 World Tour 1-Star - Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 3, 2019. Nejc Zemljak/Jan Pokeršnik and Vid Jakopin/Tadej Boženk (pictured) continued with their winning streak and kept Slovenia in contention for a home gold, as they face teams from Austria and the Netherlands in Sunday’s semis. In the women’s competition teams from Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and Ukraine will fight for a spot on the podium.
Kaho Sakaguchi and Reika Murakami kept their promise and showed a wide range of offensive and defensive skills to beat the Dutch representatives Pleun Ypma and Emma Piersma in the first quarterfinal match of the day. The Japanese will be playing in the semi-finals against the Norwegians Victoria Faye Kjølberg and Ane Guro Tveit Hjortland, who managed to take down Kinga Legieta and Marta Lodej from Poland 2-0 (21-12, 21-19). “We are really happy because we managed to serve very good today. We defended well and did well in side-out too. The place has a really good atmosphere, it is nice to play in front of so many people and it is my birthday today, so it is extra fun to be here,” Kjølberg commented.
Birthday girl Victoria Faye Kjølberg (NOR) had a successful day in Ljubljana.
Inna and Iryna Makhno proved to be too big of a challenge for the top seeded Sayaka Mizoe/Suzuka Hashimoto from Japan. The Ukrainian twin sisters took another comfortable win at the tournament and they will be playing against Julia Wouters and Katja Stam in the semis. The Dutch duo managed to overcome Slovenia’s champions Tjaša Jančar/Tjaša Kotnik 21-19, 21-19 and left the home crowd with no other choice than to direct all their support to the foreign teams. “We definitely want to go all the way to the end and this was definitely not our best performance, but the fact that we kept going and really fought eventually led us to the win. The venue is super, super crazy. I think I have never seen a 1-Star tournament, which is this amazing. It is really cool,” Wouters said after the important win.
The first men’s quarterfinal match of the day between Serbia’s Stefan Basta/Ivan Lozić and the Dutch pair Yorick de Groot/Mees Blom was postponed due to another thunderstorm, hopefully the last one for this weekend. After less than an hour, the players were back on court, and the crowd back on the stands. De Groot/Blom were better than the opposition at the end. Following in their footsteps Austria’s Florian Ertl/Johannes Kratz advanced among the top four teams after beating Slovenia’s Danijel Pokeršnik/Jure Peter Bedrač. They closed the game after three sets, with a 21-14, 19-21, 15-10 win.
Vid Jakopin and Tadej Boženk (pictured above) were the first Slovenian team that made it to the semi-finals after eliminating Austria’s Jakob Reiter/Simon Baldauf 21-12, 26-24. “We are extremely happy that we made it. We lost our focus for a while in the second set and the opponents delivered a solid performance, however the most important thing is that we advanced to the next round. This is also a good reminder for the next game that we have to stay focussed the whole time. The atmosphere here is just amazing! Ljubljana is a totally crazy venue,” Jakopin summarised his feelings.
Home stars Nejc Zemljak/Jan Pokeršnik celebrate their qualification for the semis.
The last quarterfinal match of the day was a crowd pleaser. In the clash of the pre-favourites of the tournament Slovenia’s Nejc Zemljak/Jan Pokeršnik and Ruben Penninga/Jasper Bouter from the Netherlands, the home matadors took the glory at the end winning 21-19, 13-21 and 15-11. Pokeršnik was obviously happy with reaching the semis: “This was a good match from our side except the second set which we did not start well and later we could not find our rhythm. We tried to keep calm and to regroup for the third one and I believe we were successful.”
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