Ireland’s Marcelino Cronin has claimed a ninth-place BU13 finish at the European Junior Open in Hamburg following an encouraging run to the round of 16.
Fresh from his 18th place the previous week at the Dutch Junior Open, where he won four of his six matches, the teenager got off to a flyer in Germany with two 3-0 wins to ease through the rounds of 64 and 32.
Cronin then agonisingly lost 2-3 to Graeson Smith of the USA, but he responded with three placings victories to bank an excellent finish at the four-day tournament.
There was a total of 347 entries across the eight categories, and Ireland had two other representatives, Ailong Chen in the BU13 and Shriya Drawid in the GU17.
Chen, who came 16th in Amsterdam the week before, placed 26th in Hamburg with a W2 L3 record. Drawid, meanwhile, finished 11th in her category with three wins in five matches.
BOYS SECTION
Marcelino Cronin (BU13 – W5 L1): Finished 9th with a 3-0 (11-6, 11-9, 11-5) win over American Zachary Yu. Began with 3-0 wins (11-3, 11-7, 11-1 and 11-7, 11-4, 11-3) over Sebastian Bakker of the USA and Ukrainian Andrey Hutsailiuk, but lost quarter-final 2-3 (11-2, 6-11, 6-11, 11-7, 8-11) to American Graeson Smith. Rebounded to beat American Lukas Daly 3-0 (11-9, 11-3, 11-6) and Alper Gulmez of Turkey 3-0 (11-3, 11-4, 11-3) in placings matches.
Ailong Chen (BU13 – W2 L3): Finished 26th with a 2-3 (10-12, 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 5-11) loss to Russia’s Savelii Muzychuk. Beaten 0-3 (10-12, 9-11, 9-11) by Maciej Dziech of Poland in the round of 32 and 0-3 (0-11, 0-11, 3-11) by England’s Noah Selby in 17/32 match before beating Qatar’s Mohammed Essa Al Tamini 3-0 (12-10, 14-12, 11-1) and England’s George Mcgurk 3-2 (7-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-9, 11-8) in two other play-off matches.
GIRLS SECTION
Shriya Drawid (GU17 – W3 L2): Finished 11th with a walkover against Bulgaria’s Sofia Georgieva. Started with a 3-0 (11-3, 11-2, 11-1) round of 32 win over Malaysian Sadie Kolodner but lost 0-3 (9-11, 9-11, 3-11) to Elcke Mole of the Netherlands in the round of 16. A 3-2 (11-6, 9-11, 11-6, 8-11, 11-3) placings win over Spain’s Siena Hall Rogers and a 2-3 (11-7, 11-1, 6-11, 1-11, 14-16) loss to Ciara Boulanger followed.
