Today the Barcelona Spain Masters began play. The Super 300 tournament has already on day one had some interesting matches.
In the qualification, Christo Popov and Arnaud Merkle played each other, a rematch of the French national men’s singles finals. It was a close first game that went in favor of Popov 21-18. In the second game, Popov showed why he is the national champion and won 21-11.
In the second round of qualification, Popov faced Spain’s Oriol Altimira. In just 19 minutes, the World Junior Championships runner-up defeated the Spaniard 21-9 21-7 and advanced to the main draw, where he will play Ajay Jayaram from India.
From singles to doubles
Normally we see Brice Leverdez, France’s highest ranked men’s singles player, alone on the court, but this week he will also participate in the men’s doubles with Ronan Labar.
Labar and Leverdez played Muhammad Shohibul Fikri and Bagas Maulana from Indonesia in their first match. The Indonesian pair was in front the whole first game and it seemed like the French pair were out in deep water. But the second game showed that Leverdez also plays well in doubles and the two pairs followed each other. Labar and Leverdez took the second game 21-19 and the match was to be decided in a third game.
It was another close game, but in the end Fikri and Maulana came out on top with 21-19, sending Labar and Leverdez out of the men's doubles category.
Tomorrow Leverdez will play Hans Kristian Solberg Vittinghus in the men's singles and Labar will together with Anne Tran face Mathias Bay-Smidt and Rikke Søby in the mixed doubles.
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