Today the Olympic tournament has reached the final stages of group play in both Men’s and Women’s singles, and it is almost clear who will make it through to the semi’s. No huge surprises have happened and it looks like the top seeds will come through to the next stage.
The Quarters in Mixed Doubles are scheduled to begin at 7:30 PM(BRT), 11:30 PM (BST, IST), 00:30 AM (CEST), 1:30 AM (MSK), and Polish Robert Mateusiak and Nadiezda Zieba are the only European entry in this category.
It was a thrilling end to the already very exciting Group B, containing London 2012 bronze medalists Joachim Fischer Nielsen/Christinna Pedersen (DEN), Great Britain’s Chris Adcock/Gabrielle, and London silver medalists Xu Chen/Ma Jin (CHN).
Beating Xu Chen/Ma Jin the day before, Mateusiak and Zieba fought off a big deficit in the second game against Adcock/Adcock yesterday. They saved a couple of match points and forced them into a third set where they ended up being on top of the group, and with the score 18/21, 27/25, 21/9 they are through to the Quarter finals today.
“We didn’t start well, and when we were down we kept reminding each other to fight, that this is our last Olympics,” said Mateusiak to BWF Olympic website. “They didn’t allow us to play the drive game in the beginning but we kept pushing. We just focused point by point. I guess in the third they were still thinking about the second game.”
Their Quarter final against Peng Soon CHAN/Liu Ying GOH (MAS) is set to start at 8:30 PM in Rio, which will be 00:30 AM (BST, IST), 01:30 AM (CEST), 2:30 AM (MSK).
Keep an eye on our Twitter where we will be posting when they are ready on court.
Find the 'European Schedule' attached here for European matches of the day