Olympic Games: European champion Dang Qiu narrowly misses out on a place in the last sixteen
Dang Qiu narrowly missed out on reaching the round of 16 at his first Olympic Games. The European champion lost a seven-set second round thriller against his Kazakh opponent Kirill Gerassimenko, in which the Düsseldorf player already had victory in sight. Today, Tuesday, another German is aiming to reach the round of the best 16: Olympic record medal winner Dimitrij Ovtcharov will face Brazilian Vitor Ishiy at 10 am.
Dang Qiu fails to capitalize on a strong lead
When Dang Qiu used his fourth set point to take a 2:1 lead in the third round of the duel with Kazakhstan's Kirill Gerassimenko and celebrated it almost like a victory, even the last of the 6,400 spectators in the sold-out South Paris Arena 4 knew how important this set win was for the German. However, in the end, the lead he fought for after 10:7 and three missed set points as well as the subsequent win of the next set in a top-class match at world-class level was not enough: The 27-year-old, who had only been able to defeat the Kazakh of the same age once before in September 2022, lost for the fifth time in the sixth duel with the 46th-ranked player in the Bundesliga, who has played for Werder Bremen for five years.
Dang Qiu then congratulated his opponent: “Unfortunately, I have to admit that he deserved to win. He returned a lot of balls to the table and wore me down. He has a good angle on my balls, plays me very uncomfortably and makes me work extremely hard for every point. I have to pull, pull, pull, while he has good distance at the back and blocks my balls well. That makes it very difficult for me against him.”
The European champion is only two points short: “A bit of bad luck too”
Dang Qiu, who had to congratulate Gerassimenko on an 11:6, 6:11, 13:11, 11:5, 5:11, 9:11 and 6:11 win, let a 3:1 set lead against the Kazakh go to waste. In the sixth round, however, he was close to a well-deserved victory at this point, just two points shy of the ace from the penholder. Qiu was leading 7:5 when, at the next table, local hero Felix Lebrun wrapped up his 4:2 win against Sweden's Anton Källberg and France's fans turned the South Paris Arena 4 into a soccer stadium with singing and loud trampling. The German missed a relatively easy forehand, but then secured further chances to overcome his fearsome opponent at 8:6 and 9:8. However, Gerassimenko, who had previously tied the score at 2:3, also equalized with three points in a row. In the deciding set, the Kazakh pulled away to 10:3 with an almost flawless dream start before finally wrapping up victory with an 11:6 win.
Dang Qiu said after his defeat: “I was leading 3:1, but they were all hard-fought sets. It was a game on a knife's edge. I lost a bit of concentration in the fifth set and got off to a bad start at 1:4. I got back to 4:4, then it was 4:7 and then 4:11 - something like that shouldn't happen. I got off to a good start in the sixth set and led 7:5 and 8:6 at times. Then I made two mini decisions wrong and was also a bit unlucky.”
National coach Roßkopf: “Made too easy mistakes in the seventh set”
All in all, despite a very strong performance, Dang Qiu was again unable to sufficiently restrict the Kazakh world-class player, who knows how to place his topspin shots from half-distance on both sides as if they were strings attached, in the sixth duel. The Düsseldorf penholder ace began the first set directly at the table with incredibly aggressive answers to the Kazakh's topspins, but had to adapt his tactics as the match progressed against an increasingly better and more confident Gerasimenko. At times, Qiu found the right mix of early aggressive ball reception and controlled placement attempts, which repeatedly gave him favorable starting positions for Gerassimenko's preferred topspin rallies, but at the beginning of the seventh set, the Düsseldorf player's error rate was clearly too high.
Men's national coach Jörg Roßkopf analyzed the defeat in the mixed zone: “After leading 3:1, Dang had the chance to close out the match in the sixth set. He got off to a bad start in the seventh and made too many easy mistakes. Kirill was once again extremely confident, as you would expect from him. He had achieved good results recently and had gained a lot of self-confidence, having also won against Dang at the World Championships. It was a good match at a high level with lots of good rallies. But in the end, Kirill won too many of these good rallies today.”
Dang Qiu: “The focus is now fully on the team competition”
Olympic debutant Dang Qiu didn't hide his disappointment at his elimination: “Of course I'm frustrated now. It's very bitter when you lead 3:1 and it feels like you can bring the match home - but that's the way it is. The focus is now fully on the team competition. I have to draw my conclusions from the singles in terms of my game and mentally. This is a valuable experience for me. I have to take it in my stride, because the tournament is still going on and so is my career. You need matches like this to hopefully be able to take the next step.”
Source: DTTB press release
Featured images: Dang Qiu and National coach Jörg Roßkopf (Photo: BeLa Sportfoto)