The Romanian player Iulian Chiriță secured two medals in the doubles events, on Wednesday, at the World Table Tennis Championships for juniors in Cluj-Napoca.
Iulian Chiriță announced himself as a tricolor table tennis star
In mixed doubles in the Under-19 junior competition, Chiriță and the Welsh Anna Hursey passed the French Flavien Coton/Leana Hochart 3-2 (11-13, 11-9, 11-13, 13-11, 11-8) in the quarters, and in the semi-finals they defeated the Japanese Ryuusei Kawakami/Sachi Aoki, 3-1 (11-6, 1-11, 11-5, 12-10), according to the website of the Romanian Table Tennis Federation. On Friday, in the final, Chiriță and Hursey will meet the Chinese Hechen Li/Yuxuan Qin.
In the men’s doubles event, Iulian Chiriță and the Portuguese Tiago Abiodun qualified for the semifinals, where they will face the Japanese Ryuusei Kawakami/Kazuki Yoshiyama, also on Friday.
Chiriță and Abiodun beat Alan Kurmangaliev (Kazakhstan)/Benyamin Faraji (Iran) 3-0 (11-5, 13-11, 12-10) in the round of 16, and in the quarters they won against the Indians Ankur Bhattacharjee/Abhinandh Pradhivadhi (India) 3-0 (11-2, 11-6, 12-10).
In another round of 16 match, Dragoș Bujor and Polish Rafal Formela lost to Taiwanese Guan-Hong Kuo/Hsien-Chia Hsu 1-3 (9-11, 11-7, 11-13, 9-11).
In the Under-19 juniors, in the round of 16, Alesia Sferlea and Polish Karolina Holda lost to Lilou Massart (Belgium)/Maria Berzosa (Spain) 1-3 (9-11, 9-11, 12-10, 5-11), and Bianca Mei-Roșu and Slovenian Sara Tokic lost to Japanese Sachi Aoki/Yuna Ojio 0-3 (8-11, 4-11, 3-11).
At Under-15, in the men’s doubles event, Andrei Șîbîrnă and Raul Creucu lost in the round of 16 to the Italians Francesco Trevisan/Danilo Faso with 1-3 (11-9, 5-11, 9-11, 8-11).
In the women’s category, Patricia Stoica and the Czech Hanka Kodet were defeated in the quarters by the Chinese Qihui Zhu/Ziling Liu with 3-0 (11-9, 11-4, 11-4), after 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-7) with the couple Sum Lok Yuen/Yee Lam Yeung (Hong Kong).
Maya Madar and the Austrian Mariia Lytvyn lost in the round of 16 to the Algerian pair Jade Morice/Tania Morice with 0-3 (5-11, 11-13, 7-11).
