by Ian Marshall, Editor

Park Ganghyeon, who had saved one match point before overcoming Yukiya Uda in the Linz final, accounted for Bulgaria’s Philipp Floritz in a full distance seven games duel (8-11, 11-6, 11-7, 9-11, 11-9, 10-12, 11-7); rather more comfortably, Yukiya Uda overcame the host nation’s Michael Binder (11-4, 11-4, 11-6, 11-5).

Similarly, Qiu Dang, who had lost to Park Ganghyeon at the semi-final stage in Belgium, was in equally good form in his opening contest; he beat Chinese Taipei’s Li Hsin-Yang (11-6, 11-8, 11-1, 11-8).

Likewise, there was success for Shunsuke Togami, in Linz the Under 21 Men’s Singles winner, he prevailed in opposition to Ann Jaehyun, like Park Ganghyeon from the Korea Republic (11-8, 11-4, 11-9, 12-10). However, for those who had enjoyed success on the Flanders coast, there was one preliminary round Men’s Singles casualty; also from Japan, Yuta Tanaka, runner up in the Men’s Doubles when partnering colleague Kakeru Sone, was beaten by Portugal’s Joäo Geraldo (11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 12-10, 11-7).

Eye catching performances for those who had been in form in De Haan, for the host nation the players to attract the attention for very different reasons were David Serdaroglu and Simon Pfeffer.

David Serdaroglu beat Ewout Oostwouder of the Netherlands (5-11, 11-2, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8, 11-7); in a titanic seventh game, Simon Pfeffer experienced defeat at the hands of England’s Andrew Baggaley (7-11, 11-8, 11-7, 8-11, 5-11, 11-3, 17-15).

Alas for Austria, David Serdaroglu emerged the only Austrian preliminary opening round Men’s Singles winner.