Romanian Makes Major Stride Towards Confirming Last Eight Place

September 21, 2012

Courtesy of ITTF

Never previously beyond the first stage of proceedings at Women’s World Cup Tournament; Romania’s Daniela Dodean made a major stride to ending that sequence of sadness, by upsetting the seeding in her opening match at the Volkswagen Women’s World Cup in Huangshi on Friday September 21, 2012.

Listed at no.39 on the Women’s World Rankings, the 24-year-old beat Korea’s Dang Yeseo, presently standing at no.20 on the global list, to make the perfect start. Daniela Dodean recovered from a two games to nil deficit to post a six games victory (8-11, 9-11, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8, 11-8).

Watch interview with Daniela Dodean on itTV

One Match Remaining
Thus Daniela Dodean just has one match remaining in her group; that is against Singapore’s Yu Mengyu, a testing adversary for the Romanian; Yu Mengyu currently stands at no.31 on the Women’s World Rankings, eight places higher than Daniela Dodean.

Yu Mengyu received a walk-over against Guo Yue.

Defeat for Colleague
Success for Daniela Dodean but it was defeat for her colleague Elizabeta Samara, she was beaten in four straight games by Germany’s Wu Jiaduo.

Consistently, the German forced Elizabeta Samara away from the table; rallies involving the top spin skills of Elizabeta Samara against the blocking play of Wu Jiaduo, delighted the crowd but the vast majority of the rallies were won by Wu Jiaduo as Elizabeta Samara made errors trying to force the pace.

Wu Jiaduo won in four straight games (11-3, 11-6, 11-3, 11-9).

Top Seed Succeeds
Meanwhile, in the remaining matches in the opening group stage of affairs that were enacted as proceedings came to a close on the opening day, there was success for the host nation’s Liu Shiwen, the no.1 seed and for Li Jiao of the Netherlands.

Liu Shiwen beat Viktoria Pavlovich of Belarus in four straight games (11-5, 11-7, 11-6, 11-3); while Li Jiao defeated Ariel Hsing of the United States in six games (8-11, 11-9, 11-1, 10-12, 11-5).