All of the four top seeded male players qualified for the semi-finals on Sunday 11th May, the last day of the Final World Olympic Qualification Tournament in the Hungarian capital Budapest.

Taipei’s Chiang Peng-Lung, Hong Kong’s Cheung Yuk, Belgium’s Jean-Michel Saive and Romania’s Adrian Crisan all fulfilled their duties.

The latter, however, was in real danger against Ahmed Ali Saleh. Crisan had to save not less than five match points against the twenty-eight year old Egyptian.

Pure Egyptian Sadness
When Ahmed Ali Saleh scored his tenth point in the seventh game, he realised that there was one huge problem for him. He ran completely out of steam, he had no more time-out to take and he already saw the yellow card.

There was no way to catch a deep breath and from then on Adrian Crisan dominated all the longer rallies. The seventh match in four day was one too much for Ali Saleh. Crisan on his part was rewarded for keeping a cool head in close situations.

Articol publicat de Marius Widmer pe pagina oficiala a Federatiei Internationale de Tenis de Masa, www.ittf.com.