World Paddle Tennis Championships: Day 5

Day 5 saw fast and furious semi-final action as the finalists for the men’s and women’s open and men’s and women’s match play events were decided.

Brazil’s Julio Julianoti reaches to intercept a shot mid-court while his partner Gervasio Del-Bono also reaches during their match play semi-final match against Brazil. Neil Campbell/The Epoch Times

CALGARY, Canada—Day 5 saw fast and furious semi-final action as the finalists for the men’s and women’s open and men’s and women’s match play events were decided.

Open Event Semi Finals

In the men’s open,  Spain’s seemingly unstoppable team of David Losada and Juan Jose Mieres beat out countrymen Jordi Munoz and Francisco Navarro by a score of 6-1, 6-2. On the other court, Brazil’s Gervasio Del Bono and Julio Julianoti beat out Argentina’s Rodrigo Ovide and Fernando Cavalleri in a tough match by a score of 6-4, 6-4.

“I think we got this far and had a really good time, it was a really hard match against Argentina. In the last World Championship we faced this same matchup in the semi-finals.”

On their upcoming match against Spain’s Losada and Mieres, Brazil’s Julianoti said, “It’s going to be hard for us, Spain is well prepared. They beat us in the finals in the last World Championship and we hope to reverse that result.”

Del Bono commented on just how tough their match against Argentina’s squad was.

“We’re very happy to be in the finals for the first time. Our match against Argentina was a really hard game with a lot of pressure. We’ve played them once before and we won. It was really hard but we played well.”

Julianoti added, “It was a very psychological game, more than it was physical. We had to think about things a lot more.”

Spain’s David Losada said the duo was happy to return to the finals of a World Championship.