by Ian Marshall, Editor
Mainstay of the success in the title deciding contest was Liliian Bardet, in the second match of the fixture he beat Myshsaal Sabhi in five games (11-7, 11-8, 10-12, 9-11, 11-6), before in the fourth, the contest which brought proceedings to a close, accounting for Dorian Zheng in a similarly hard fought engagement (11-8, 12-14, 12-10, 6-11, 11-5).
The one further success for the champions elect came in the doubles, Lilian Bardet and Vincent Picard succeeding in a contest that was the total opposite of the singles duels, they prevailed in three straight games (11-0, 11-4, 11-9). Meanwhile, the one win for the defeated came in the opening match of the engagement when, by the very narrowest of decisions, Dorian Zheng beat Vincent Picard (11-7, 14-16, 11-9, 6-11, 15-13).
Earlier at the semi-final stage Lilian Bardet and Vincent Picard had recorded a 3-0 win in opposition to Egypt’s Abdelrahman Dendan and Ahmed Elborhamy, the no.2 seeds; Myshaal Sabhi and Dorian Zheng had ousted the Russian combination of Lev Katsman and Artem Tihonov, the no.3 seeds, a 3-1 outcome being the result.
Mainstay of the penultimate round win was Dorian Zheng, he overcame both Artem Tikhonov (11-7, 11-4, 11-8) and Lev Katsman (5-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-5), whilst teaming with Myshaal Sabhi to secure the crucial doubles (12-10, 11-9, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9).
Team events over, attention now turns to the individual competitions; play concludes on Monday 11th February.
