Miguel Ángel Toledo and Iker Sastre, bronze in doubles at the Slovenia Open. Photo: RFETM
Three medals have been the haul of the Spanish table tennis team at the Slovenia Open held in the city of Lasko, one of the highest level tournaments on the international circuit. Ander Cepas’s bronze in singles (class 9) has been joined by two more medals in doubles, with Miguel Ángel Toledo starring, who won a bronze in class MD4 with Iker Sastre and then a silver in mixed doubles with the Finnish Aino Sirri Tapola.
The couple formed by the man from Madrid and the man from Bilbao continues to achieve success and accumulate good feelings for the great goal of the season, the Paris Paralympic Games. Toledo and Sastre led their group with two 3-0 wins (11-9, 11-5 and 11-3) against the Saudi Rakam Abdulrahman Alsalmi and the Slovenian Primoz Kancler, and 3-1 (10-12, 12- 10, 11-8 and 12-10) with Koreans Hakjin Kim and Youngbok Baek.
In the quarterfinals they had to come back against the Poles Rafal Czuper and Tomasz Jakimczuk, winning 3-1 (3-11, 11-5, 11-5 and 11-9) to secure the medal. And in the semifinals, even though they fought back, they lost 0-3 (9-11, 7-11 and 5-11) to the Koreans Yeongjin Jang and Young Dae Joo, number one duo in the world ranking.
Toledo completed his magnificent performance in Slovenia by also winning a silver medal in XD4 mixed doubles. The Madrid native and the Finnish Tapola reached second position with a defeat against the Koreans Jin Cheol Park and Su Yeon Seo (1-3) and three victories against the Saudi Alsalmi and the Dutch Maria Elizabeth Boers (3-0), the Polish Tomasz Jakimczuk and the Serbian Ana Zelen (3-1), and the Czech Jiri Suchanek and the Serbian Zeljana Ristic (3-0).
The rest of the Spanish players were not lucky. The couples Ander Cepas-Jorge Cardona and José Manuel Ruiz-Alejandro Díaz were on the verge of winning the medals, who fell in the quarterfinals in the MD18 class. Eliminated in the group stage in class MD14 were Álvaro Valera-Jordi Morales, as well as Ricard Sabio, Gonzalo Rodríguez and Pilar González. The next tournament will be the qualifier in Thailand (May 23 to 25), which will be attended by Daniel Rodríguez (class 2) and Alberto Seoane (class 6), who will seek a ticket for the Paris Games.
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