Amir Levi’s loss sees the Israeli scrape second in his men’s singles group and means he has a lot of work to do in Canada to recover the early part of his season.
The world number 3 Levi hasn’t had the best start to 2019. His WH2 men’s singles quest to make Paralympic qualification could have gone better, with only a last 16 result in Turkey last month to start off the campaign.
Favourite in a weakened field in Uganda two weeks ago, the Israeli lost in a close fought final to India’s Sanjeev Kumar in 3 games. And hot on his heels are Germany’s Rick Hellmann and Team GB’s Martin Rooke.
Hellmann got one stage further than Levi in Turkey, and this week beat him in the WH2 men’s singles group D match to take the top spot and open up a quarter final draw. Levi will have to do it the hard way by getting past Atsuya Watanabe (JPN) in the last 16 if he is to recover some ranking points.
Hellman faces former world number 1 Kim Hoon (KOR), meanwhile Martin Rooke takes on Daiki Kajiwara who is also making a play for Tokyo 2020, both men fresh from semi-final results in recent weeks.
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Mroz and Loquette lead the charge
Poland’s Bartlomiej Mroz and France’ Meril Loquette have made a great start to their week in Ottawa. Both having topped their SU5 men’s singles groups and set for a good draw through to latter stages of the Canadian international.
After a win against French Guillaume Charlot, Mroz was in impressive form against difficult Japanese opposition Tetsuo Ura. The 21-14, 21014 result puts the Pol in a great position tomorrow, whilst we wait for the knockout stage draw.
A close 3 games win over India’s Raj Kumar was the result that led Loquette to the top of group E. 3 straight wins for the Frenchman this week, who is still buzzing from his semi-final result in Uganda two weeks ago and his quarter-final in Dubai before that. L’homme sur la mission!
The Canada Para-Badminton International 2019 begins on Tuesday this week. Look out for updates and results each day on tournament software here.