RRI Sports Club

 On the first day of the Balkan Road Cycling Championships, hosted by Bacau County (eastern Romania), the Romania athletes won five medals. Of these, two were gold, one silver and two bronze, obtained in the time trial race, with the start and finish in front of the City Hall in Dărmăneşti. The Balkan champions are Maria Perşoiu, in the women’s category, and Gabriel Andronache, in the men’s category, in the junior under 17 competitions. In the same category, Bianca Pătraşcu won silver. The bronze medals went to Emil Dima, in the under-23 male category, and Iana Balteş, in the under-19 female category.

At the World Individual Table Tennis Championships taking place in Qatar, in Doha, the Romanian athletes are one step away from the final stages. In the men’s doubles, the Romanian-Spanish pair Ovidiu Ionescu / Alvaro Robles, world vice-champions in 2019, qualified for the quarterfinals after a 3-2 win over the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto and Sora Matsushima. In the women’s doubles, Bernadette Szőcs and Austrian Sofia Polcanova, European vice-champions, reached the quarterfinals after a 3-2 win over the Czech-Slovak pair Hana Matelova / Barbora Balazova, the holder of the continental title. Adina Diaconu also qualified for the quarterfinals, together with Spanish athlete Maria Xiao. They advanced to the round of 16, 3-0, against the pair Wing Lam / Chengzhu Zhu, from Hong Kong.

In the WTA 250 tennis tournament in Rabat, the Romanian player Jaqueline Cristian qualified, on Wednesday, for the quarterfinals. She defeated Spanish athlete Aliona Bolsova 7-6, 7-6 in the round of 16. The Iberian player of Moldovan origin had previously defeated the tournament’s 6 favorite Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic. Next week, Cristian will play at the Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros, directly on the main draw. (EE)

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