A final gathering, all in a circle, in the “warm-up” room. The entire Team Popov staff was gathered a few moments before entering the arena. The previous meeting had just ended on court N.1, the same as his brother the day before. It’s 1 p.m. and dust, Christo Popov started his day against the second player in the world, the best for the year 2023, the Chinese Shi Yu Qi. The mission was complicated and it was.
Even if Popov dominated his rival during the “China Masters” in November 2023, Shi Yu Qi took his revenge, in France (21-14, 21-15), against Christo Popov who had not fully recovered from his victory in Germany on Sunday. “He was very successful in January (he notably won the tournament in India and made a finalist in the Malaysian Super1000, Editor’s note). It arrived here fresh. I tried to do what I could with my form today. I pushed him well with good quality of play, great rallies, but today he was just better…“
The youngest of the siblings tried, but he quickly had to face the facts. Even with the support of the French public, even with the desire to fight, Christo Popov had to surrender in two rounds. Bad news for the singles but not necessarily for the doubles which will start at the beginning of the evening just to preserve some strength…”My only way to beat him was to be patient and go on long rallies.“A situation far from ideal for recovery. There will remain spectacular exchanges for the Parisian public which allowed them to come back from a loss of six points (1-7 then 11-13) without ever having the opportunity to rejoin Axelsen’s winner earlier this year in Malaysia.
The good points of the Labar-Corvée duo
While Christo Popov’s match was coming to an end, another Provençal followed suit since the resident of Aix UC, Ronan Labar, was in the running with his friend Lucas Corvée. Two boys who made life difficult for the Indonesians Ahsan/Setiawan, two “veterans” aged 37 and 40 who still have some nice remains (world number 13).”It doesn’t happen that often that we are the youngest“, smiled Lucas Corvée at the end of the match. A happy boy and for good reason since the two Tricolores signed a major performance by winning at the end of the suspense.
A duo who knew how to digest the loss of the first round for next to nothing (19-21) before pulling out all the stops later by forcing the 2008 Olympic champion, Hendra Setiawan, into long exchanges. A duo who wanted to enlarge the land as much as possible. A tactic that paid off against a duo who were starting to tire (19-21, 21-17, 21-19). “These are crucial points in the race for qualification. We managed to find each other well“, appreciates Ronan Labar, who was able to explode with joy after the final winning point.
A victory and valuable points collected in the race for Olympic qualifying. A duo which thus takes a small option before the Popov brothers’ match this Wednesday late afternoon. “These are crucial points which have put us points ahead ahead of tonight’s match. But there are five tournaments left, there can be upsets at each tournament, that’s the beauty of this sport“, says Ronan Labar. The only certainty is a victory of which “we will remember!“, appreciates the Aix player who will challenge on Thursday, a Danish pair, either the duo Lundgaard/Vestergaard; or the pair seeded N.4 Astrup/Rasmussen.
2024-03-06 16:09:47
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